Talk:Ecosystem/Archive 2

Material moved from "Organism"

The following material on ecosystems appeared inappropriately in the article on organisms, and I have therefore removed it.

However, it - or parts of it - may be of use in this article. Plantsurfer (talk) 14:21, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

The ecosystem concept

Main article: Ecosystem

The first principle of ecology is that each living organism has an ongoing and continual relationship with every other element that makes up its environment. An ecosystem can be defined as any situation where there is interaction between organisms and their environment.

The ecosystem is composed of two entities, the entirety of life, the biocoenosis and the medium that life exists in the biotope. Within the ecosystem, species are connected and dependent upon one another in the food chain, and exchange energy and matter between themselves and with their environment.

The concept of an ecosystem can apply to units of variable size, such as a pond, a field, or a piece of deadwood. A unit of smaller size is called a microecosystem. For example, an ecosystem can be a stone and all the life under it. A mesoecosystem could be a forest, and a macroecosystem a whole ecoregion, with its drainage basin.

The main questions when studying an ecosystem are:

• Whether the colonization of a barren area could be carried out
• Investigation the ecosystem's dynamics and changes
• The methods of which an ecosystem interacts at local, regional and global scale
• Whether the current state is stable
• Investigating the value of an ecosystem and the ways and means that interaction of ecological systems provide benefit to humans, especially in the provision of healthy water.

Ecosystems are often classified by reference to the biotopes concerned. The following ecosystems may be defined:

• As continental ecosystems, such as forest ecosystems, meadow ecosystems such as steppes or savannas), or agro-ecosystems
• As ecosystems of inland waters, such as lentic ecosystems such as lakes or ponds; or lotic ecosystems such as rivers
• As oceanic ecosystems.

Another classification can be done by reference to its communities, such as in the case of an human ecosystem. Plantsurfer (talk) 14:21, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Ecosystem productivity

In an ecosystem, the connections between species are generally related to food and their role in the food chain. There are three categories of organisms:

• Producers -- usually plants which are capable of photosynthesis but could be other organisms such as bacteria around ocean vents that are capable of chemosynthesis.
• Consumers -- animals, which can be primary consumers (herbivorous), or secondary or tertiary consumers (carnivorous).
• Decomposers -- bacteria, mushrooms which degrade organic matter of all categories, and restore minerals to the environment.

These relations form sequences, in which each individual consumes the preceding one and is consumed by the one following, in what are called food chains or food network. In a food network, there will be fewer organisms at each level as one follows the links of the network up the chain.

These concepts lead to the idea of biomass (the total living matter in a given place), of primary productivity (the increase in the mass of plants during a given time) and of secondary productivity (the living matter produced by consumers and the decomposers in a given time). (: These two last ideas are key, since they make it possible to evaluate the load capacity -- the number of organisms which can be supported by a given ecosystem. In any food network, the energy contained in the level of the producers is not completely transferred to the consumers. And the higher one goes up the chain, the more energy and resources is lost and consumed. Thus, from an energy—and environmental—point of view, it is more efficient for humans to be primary consumers (to subsist from vegetables, grains, legumes, fruit, cotton, etc.) than as secondary consumers (from eating herbivores, omnivores, or their products, such as milk, chickens, cattle, sheep, etc.) and still more so than as a tertiary consumer (from consuming carnivores, omnivores, or their products, such as fur, pigs, snakes, alligators, etc.). An ecosystem(s) is unstable when the load capacity is overrun and is especially unstable when a population doesn't have an ecological niche and overconsumers.

The productivity of ecosystems is sometimes estimated by comparing three types of land-based ecosystems and the total of aquatic ecosystems:

• The forests (1/3 of the Earth's land area) contain dense biomasses and are very productive. The total production of the world's forests corresponds to half of the primary production.
• Savannas, meadows, and marshes (1/3 of the Earth's land area) contain less dense biomasses, but are productive. These ecosystems represent the major part of what humans depend on for food.
• Extreme ecosystems in the areas with more extreme climates -- deserts and semi-deserts, tundra, alpine meadows, and steppes -- (1/3 of the Earth's land area) have very sparse biomasses and low productivity
• Finally, the marine and fresh water ecosystems (3/4 of Earth's surface) contain very sparse biomasses (apart from the coastal zones).

Humanity's actions over the last few centuries have seriously reduced the amount of the Earth covered by forests (deforestation), and have increased agro-ecosystems (agriculture). In recent decades, an increase in the areas occupied by extreme ecosystems has occurred (desertification). Plantsurfer (talk) 14:35, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I noticed you removed this text from the Organism, see here, without further comment. Now this was a half a year ago, I wonder what you are thinking about this right now? Should this text be added in this article? Or is this also a vague, uninformative, unencyclopedic essay? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 10:05, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, these two sections were out of place in Organism, and I guess I was hoping that there would be some use for it in Ecosystem. However, not a soul has commented on this material to date or made use of it, and I have not had time to process it myself. Plantsurfer (talk) 12:36, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I am no expert in this field. At first sight the text looks fine, but essay-like and unreferenced. On second look there seems to be several questions:

• The first sentence seems to referenced in Nicholas V. Longo (2007). Why Community Matters, page 4-5.
• This first sentence speaks about the "first principle of ecology". One look at Googlebooks shows that there are multiple things called first principles of ecology:
  • survival of the fittest
  • interdependence
  • a systems approach to the knowledge of the phenomena
  • the principle of diversity
  • the principle of unity, ie, unity with the environment (Odum, 1969).

Now this text is talking about multiple main items, such as "main questions", "classification" etc. I prefer text like this good referenced, and more encyclopedic. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 21:33, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. Looking at the article itself, what you have said above also applies to it - after the Overview section there is precious little citation going on. We need to improve this. Plantsurfer (talk) 12:19, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

General

The term 'ecosystem' has traditionally been used for environmental, biological systems. In the recent years, since about 2004, it is also used in relation to industry and economy, e.g. in "WiMAX ecosystem", see http://www.wimax.com/education/faq/faq41. This alternative usage of the term deserves an additional entry in Wikipedia, to help people understanding this new engineering or economical slang usage of the term. AchimvB (talk) 11:33, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Lay out

I think the changes made to the lay out of this article, see here, are no improvement in compare to the lay out a week ago, see here. So either it becomes improved some more or restored. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 14:56, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Your stance is essentially based upon wikilawyering, because you provide no justifications for reverting work that improves Wikipedia, and instead baselessly revert pages without justification.

Appropriate Wikipedia layout is comprised at the Wikipedia Manual of Style. User Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) continues to revert article ecosystem against Wikipedia policy and formatting rules in favor of his or her own's personal preference. Said edits take time, and literally improve Wikipedia, and should not all be immediately reverted because of preferential perceptions. Notice to User Marcel Douwe Dekker: Please discontinue reverting multiple page edits when you disagree with one of the changes. Instead, please consider making a further improvement to the article, rather than all of the work collectively and in entirety. Thank you.

Working to correct the following incorrect and unnecessary reversions done by user Marcel Douwe Dekker :

• (Move portals to appropriate See also section.)
• (formatting, alphabetize, copy editing)

Note that user Marcel Douwe Dekker's reasoning and rationale for reverting page edits is based on personal preference, and not Wikipedia policy and rules. Stated user's rationale regarding the article are listed above as follows: "either it becomes improved some more or restored". This is not in congruence with Wikipedia policies, or a valid rationale, and is beginning to resemble vandalism.

71.202.65.243 (talk) 02:27, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

First the prodedure: There is no need to copy the commands I made on your talk page here. I removed it again. And next. I have no need to talk about all kinds of Wikirules. I just followed procedure: I revered some of the lay out changes, made a note here on the talkpage and on your talk page, where I asked you to start this discussion about lay out. Instead you just referted the lay out changes, without any comment. This is unacceptable. But I will leave it with that. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 10:19, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

The lay out here

I just want to discuss the changes made to the lay out here. I think some of them are no improvement in the current version. Three things. I oppose:

1. the use of an image left and right in the overview section.
2. the large size of the images: The images don't have to be that large.
3. to much and to large images on the left: I prefer the images one the right as much as possible.
4. the listing of portals and wikicommons and wiktionary links in the see also section.

I think these point in the current article are no improvement, and I like to refert them again.

The preferences I mention here are based on my ideas of how the lay out of a featured article should be like. I don't think these kind of things (images left and right, large images left, and multimedia in the see also sector) are standard in featured articles. But maybe I am mistaken!? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 11:32, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Now I checked this myself looking at some more or less related featured articles [1] [2], [3], [4], [5]. I noticed:

1. In none of the articles has an image left and right in any section
2. The images in teh articles are mostly smaller
3. There are images of the left, but these are also smaller
4. Listings to Wikicommons are if present at the bottum of the article and not in the see also section. Links to portals don't interfer with the lay out of the see also section

I have only one conclusion. The User:71.202.65.243 can't have that much experience with lay out. If he wants to changes things here, he should have to give some arguments and some other users should support this, before it is the article will be restored in the state so far) only he seems to prefer.

I restored the lay out of this article using the lay out of the featured article Bob Marshall (wilderness activist) as example. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 13:12, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry Marcel but it was a mess, with orphaned images floating in the space beside the contents box, and no reason for them to be there. Example images should accompany the example table. The biome map should be in the biome section, etc. Ideally every image should have a purpose, not simply stand alone, unrelated to the text. Now, if anyone knows how to force the Overview section to run beside the Contents box that would be perfect. Plantsurfer (talk) 17:18, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Plantsurfer. The lay out has been here for over a year, which of cause doesn't make it right. But the lay out was here even before I wikified this article a year ago, see here. The situation untill two weeks ago, see lay out 11 August 2008, had a clear and simple lay out concept: The images where just a listing of examples of environments, which could be considered as ecosystems.

Maybe this could have been expressed better. This first image for example did express beeing an example in the text. I personaly think the current state is a mess with (in your words) "orphaned images floating in the space beside the contents box...". Now I don't say that things have to return to the way they where. But this mess has to be cleaned one why or on other. Or maybe I just have to accept that it is fuzzy. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 20:44, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Page formatting following Wikipedia community consensus (Rules and Guidelines)

Wikipedia policies regarding layout, referenced:

Images should ideally be spread evenly within the article, and relevant to the sections they are located in. It is a good idea to try to maintain visual coherence by aligning the width of images and templates on a given page. "See also" is the most appropriate place to link a Portal. When placing images, be careful not to stack too many of them within the lead, or within a single section... An image should not overwhelm the screen; 300px may be considered a limit, as this is approximately half Wikipedia's text space's width on a 800x600 screen. Links to Sister projects should be under the last appendix section.

The main problem with your spreading images all over there article is, that non of them are relevant to the sections they are located in. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 14:43, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

wta uop —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.66.28.109 (talk) 02:19, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Introrewrite tag

I just removed the introrewrite-tag added here by User:Marlith (on 14 September 2008 20:59 (UTC)) without giving a valid reason on the talk page, why this tag should be add here in the first place.

I checked with the same Wikipedia article on the German Wikipedia and the Dutch Wikipedia, which have a similar introduction. I can't think of any reason, why this particular intro should/or might be rewritten.

On the other hand. This tag has been here for allmost a year, dand the article has been watch at over 1 million times. I do think any editor who adds the tag there, should do any thing in it's power to improve the article as fast an propper as he can. Do just leave it and look the other way. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 12:47, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

The effect of Climate Change on Ecosystems

I think it might be appropriate adding a section to the article about how Climate change has effected and may effect Ecosystems Mark999 21:09, 8 October 2009 (UTC)Mark999 21:28, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Copy-paste registration

• In this edit text is copy/paset from the Ecosystem ecology and Systems ecology articles. -- Mdd (talk) 10:02, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

plants

plants are culo free —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.108.229.192 (talk) 23:03, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

The topic and its attributes....

• http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=allintitle%3A+desert+ecosystem&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=2008&as_vis=0
• http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=allintitle%3A+forest+ecosystem&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=2009&as_vis=0
• http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=allintitle%3A+ocean+ecosystem&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=2009&as_vis=0

--222.64.220.28 (talk) 10:06, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

[two three sentence/general information about the infortance of the ecos —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.186.24.113 (talk) 02:09, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

The word ecosystem as used in the word of technology.

Maybe there should be a mention that the term ecosystem has been used in non-organic sense in the context of technology to refer to the whole collection of hardware accessories, software, etc. developed for a hardware platform. For example, in the technology press you hear about IOS and Android smartphone ecosystems or Mac vs. Windows ecosystems. --Cab88 (talk) 06:01, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

It was easy enough to find one of your examples of usage in mainstream media (Reuters). A sentence in the lead could say something like, "The term is also used in business and technology to describe a collection of interconnected products and services." That is a definition in Wiktionary. It seems to me like a solid concept, more than a mere verbal fad.--Brambleshire (talk) 15:22, 10 September 2011 (UTC)