Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biology

Template:Outline of knowledge coverage

Epigenetics

• Epigenetics - main article
  • Epigenetic theory - overlapping content
  • Transgenerational epigenetics - overlapping content
  • Soft inheritance - overlapping content
    • Inheritance of acquired characteristics - negatively characterized as outdated and disproven Soviet dogma that had disastrous administrative consequences
    • Lamarckism - categorized as an obsolete scientific theory, despite contemporary re-analyses within the mainstream scientific community
    • Lysenkoism - depicts Lamarckism, and, specifically, the inheritance of acquired characteristics, as being a textbook example of pseudoscience among Lysenko's many bedlamitic absurdities

This interrelated series of articles is one of the most disoriented, contradictory and factually compromised sets that I've encountered on our project in quite some time. Moreover, the overlapping nature of content and lack of adequately unambiguous central navigation is confusing, even for someone who has existing familiarity with the general topic. I'm not certain of how much available manpower WikiProject Biology has to offer at the moment, but I'd like to get the ball rolling on a collaborative effort of some sort.   — C M B J   04:56, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

A thorough review of the gene article

Transcluded from Talk:Gene/Review

To WP:MCB, WP:GEN, WP:BIOL and WP:EB

The gene article gets 50,000 views per month but has been de-listed as a featured article since 2006. Given the success of the recent blitz on the enzyme article, I thought I'd suggest spending a couple of weeks seeing if we can get it up to a higher standard. I'm going to start with updating some of the images. If you'd like to help out on the article, it'd be great to see you there. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 09:49, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

It appears the main reason gene was delisted as a GA was sourcing (see Talk:Gene/GA1). The following free textbook is probably sufficient to document most basic facts about genes:

• Alberts B, Johnson A, Lewis J, Raff M, Roberts K, Walter P (2002). Molecular Biology of the Cell (Fourth ed.). New York: Garland Science. ISBN 978-0-8153-3218-3.

a second one is even more relevant, but unfortunately not freely accessed:

• Watson JD, Baker TA, Bell SP, Gann A, Levine M, Losick R (2013). Molecular Biology of the Gene (7th ed.). Benjamin Cummings. ISBN 978-0-321-90537-6.

I will start working on this as I find time. Boghog (talk) 17:58, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt on this! I see I did do some work here back in the day, but not enough. Looks like a typical large-but-untended wiki article - bloated up with random factoids with no attention to the flow of the article. I'm pretty busy for this week and out of town next week, but I'll try to give it some attention. Opabinia regalis (talk) 19:19, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I'll probably go through and make all the necessary MOS tweaks for FA status to the article within the next week. Too preoccupied with other articles at the moment to make any substantive content/reference changes though. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 03:24, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Glossary

Snooping around I encountered Template:Genetics glossary, I don't know it's backstory, but it is a rather cleaver idea for a template in my opinion. I partially reckon it might go well under the first image in place or the second image depicting DNA, which conceptually is a tangent. I am not sure, hence my asking. --Squidonius (talk) 21:47, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Including a glossary could be useful, but I think it should be concise and tailored specifically for this article. Currently {{Genetics glossary}} contains 22 entries and some of the definitions are quite lengthy. A shorter glossary, closer to the size of {{Transcription factor glossary}} or {{Restriction enzyme glossary}}, IMHO would be more effective. Another option is to transclude the {{Genetics sidebar}} which in turn links to {{Genetics glossary}}. Boghog (talk) 06:38, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

...could also just transclude a collapsed version - provides the full set of terms and takes up little space. If people need a glossary, they can expand it. Glossaries probably shouldn't be expanded by default unless there's a lot of free space along the right side of the page between level 2 sections (i.e., horizontal line breaks), since images and tables should take precedence. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 07:25, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Collapsed or not collapsed, {{Genetics glossary}} is still way too long. Glossaries should be restricted to key terms with short definitions that can quickly be scanned while reading the rest of the article. IMHO, a long glossary defeats its purpose. Furthermore an uncollapsed glossary is more likely be read and if kept short, no need to collapse. Boghog (talk) 08:30, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Fair enough. Might as well make a new one since it's not referenced anyway; imo, glossaries should cite sources, preferably another glossary, because it's article content. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 08:39, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Hmm, apparently I added a bunch of stuff to that template awhile back, but don't remember it at all. It appears to be a subset of the article genetics glossary. (I'm not really sure we need both.) I agree that the template is way too long, and as constructed is hard to ctrl-F for a term.

I suggest just linking to the MBC glossary as a "reference". I would consider this kind of thing as a summary analogous to the lead paragraphs; no need for a clutter of little blue numbers. Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:47, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

References

I'm planning on adding some more Molecular Biology of the Cell references to the article using {{rp}} to specify chapter sections. I went to the MBOC 4th ed. online page but I can find no way of searching by page number, chapter, section or anything else. Any ideas on how to specify specific sections as is possible for Biochemistry 5th ed. online? Alternatively, maybe there's a more easily refernced online textbook for general citations. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 11:30, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

I had the same train of thought here on the regular talk page. How about something like this? Uses {{sfn}} to include links to individual sections as notes. Of course, now they're separate from the rest of the references, but maybe it's not a bad idea to distinguish 'basic stuff you can find in a textbook' from 'specific results you need to consult the literature for'. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:09, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

You're right, I missed that. I agree that it's actually a good way to format it. Having a separate list that indicates the significance of the references is useful. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 08:06, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

I am not a big fan of {{sfn}} templates. They are more complicated and harder to maintain. Plus they don't directly address the problem of searching Molecular Biology of the Cell. What seems to work is to search for the chapter or subchapter titles in quotes. For example search for "DNA and Chromosomes" provides a link to the introduction of chapter 4. Then one can reference the chapter or subchapter number with {{rp}}. I am busy this week but should have more time this weekend to work on this. Boghog (talk) 12:21, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

I mis-described my own suggestion; it's actually {{efn}} (not that that's better). I like your method better from an aesthetic and maintenance point of view, but the problem is that giving a reader a reference to "chapter 4" is less useful if there's no obvious way to get to chapter 4 from the book's table of contents page. I don't see a way to provide separate links for each chapter/section without splitting up the references in the reference list. We could use {{rp}} like this, but I think the links police won't like that. Opabinia regalis (talk) 18:03, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

OK, I now see what you mean. The choice is between {{efn}} and in-line external links and {{efn}} is the lesser of two evils. One other possibility is to append the chapter external links to the citation:

• Alberts B, Johnson A, Lewis J, Raff M, Roberts K, Walter P (2002). Molecular Biology of the Cell (Fourth ed.). New York: Garland Science. ISBN 978-0-8153-3218-3. Chapter 4: DNA and Chromosomes; Chapter 7: Control of Gene Expression; Chapter 7.1: An Overview of Gene Control; Chapter 7.2: DNA-Binding Motifs in Gene Regulatory Proteins; Chapter 7.3: How Genetic Switches Work

or have separate citations for each chapter where only the |chapter= and |chapterurl= parameters differ:

• Alberts B, Johnson A, Lewis J, Raff M, Roberts K, Walter P (2002). "Chapter 7: Control of Gene Expression". Molecular Biology of the Cell (Fourth ed.). New York: Garland Science. ISBN 978-0-8153-3218-3. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)

Boghog (talk) 18:47, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

My first reaction to your 'appended links' idea was that we shouldn't create our own linked pseudo-TOC given the publisher's apparent desire not to have a linked TOC hosted by the organization they actually licensed the content to. But all the other ideas do essentially the same thing, so that's a bit silly. I think I like that idea in combination with {{rp}} chapter labels best, as it's least intrusive in the text, makes clear how many citations go to a general reference, and doesn't require a separate list or potentially fragile formatting. Opabinia regalis (talk) 20:49, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

I've not done much non-standard reference citation so I'll wait until you've done a couple so that I can see the format in context before doing any more. The ones I added yesterday shouldn't be too difficult to reformat. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 12:24, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

You're the one currently doing the work, so I think that means you get to decide :) Opabinia regalis (talk) 19:01, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

MBOC references

Article

Genes are numerous and useful

References

Glossary

Ch 2: Cell Chemistry and Biosynthesis

2.1: The Chemical Components of a Cell

Ch 4: DNA and Chromosomes

4.1: The Structure and Function of DNA

4.2: Chromosomal DNA and Its Packaging in the Chromatin Fiber

Ch 6: How Cells Read the Genome: From DNA to Protein

6.1: DNA to RNA

6.2: RNA to Protein

Ch 7: Control of Gene Expression

So {{rp}} labels the chapter number but does not provide any easy link to the actual information. Therefore it's combined with a list of chapter links. the benefit is that the {{rp}} template is relatively easy to maintain and the list of chapter links doesn't require maintainance and places all the MBOC links together. As stated above, there's basically no way to avoid linking individually to chapters if we want to cite MBOC. I'll finish building the chapter list over the next couple of days. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 01:29, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

I've finished adding MBOC references up to section 3 (gene expression). Also, whoever originally wrote the gene expression section of the article really liked semicolons! T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 10:51, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Looks great, I like the collapsible box! I can't find it at the moment, though - IIRC there is somewhere an agreement not to use collapsed boxes for references for accessibility reasons. I don't see it in WP:ACCESSIBILITY so I could be misremembering, and since the box contains links and not the reference note itself, it's probably fine. Just wanted to mention it in case someone recognized the issue. Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:50, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

@Opabinia regalis and Evolution and evolvability: The guideline is MOS:COLLAPSE, which states "...boxes that toggle text display between hide and show, should not conceal article content, including reference lists ... When scrolling lists or collapsible content are used, take care that the content will still be accessible on devices that do not support JavaScript or CSS." I checked this article on my phone, a mid-2011 model, and that entire box just doesn't appear at all using the default mobile view. I tried setting the template parameter expand=true so the box is expanded by default but that made no difference. Maybe better to change to a bulleted or indented list? Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 10:50, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

@Adrian J. Hunter: Well spotted - It's really irritating when templates don't work properly on mobiles! I've changed the MBOC list to be wrapped in {{Hidden begin}} + {{Hidden end}}, which renders properly on phones (default expanded). T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 12:31, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Yep, that works – thanks! Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 13:23, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Naming of articles

There is a discussion at Duck (food) about the naming of articles which editors might be interested in. DrChrissy ^(talk) 18:45, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 9

Newsletter • May / June 2016

Check out this month's issue of the WikiProject X newsletter, featuring the first screenshot of our new CollaborationKit software!

Harej (talk) 00:23, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Should biological articles be purged of teleological language?

An IP editor appears to be attempting to remove all traces of teleological language from biology articles such as Cicada and Mantis. Perhaps we need to consider what policy is or should be on the question, as more articles may become involved.

For context, phrases like "camouflaged TO evade predators" are often considered teleological, the "to" implying a purpose to the adaptation involved. Biologists admit to feeling discomfort with the use of teleology, real or apparent, as among other reasons it has a history related to natural theology and could today be related to intelligent design. However, many biologists use teleological explanations routinely.

Removing apparent teleology in explanations of adaptations, even if it is possible, is potentially cumbersome, as an account of how adaptation works through natural selection is likely to be longer, and repetitive. Some philosophers of biology think however that removing it is not entirely possible without damaging the intended meaning, in other worlds that teleology is inherent in (evolutionary) biological thought.

I'd be grateful to hear what position people think we should take on the matter. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:49, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

I can see how it could be cumbersome in some cases, but I don't see why it's harder to write something like "have adaptations that camouflage them from predators" rather than "are camouflaged to avoid predators". Dinoguy2 (talk) 21:13, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

CC, I have seen you around a lot on biology articles and you are an extremely good and valued editor. However, on this occasion, I must disagree with you and support the removal of teleological language. The most basic principle of evolution is that it has no specific "direction" - mutations occur randomly and those adaptations which confer the greatest fitness are those which are passed on to the next generation. To write in a way that suggests evolution has a direction is, IMHO, quite seriously misleading. We can find ways around this. DrChrissy ^(talk) 21:22, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

I don't see an issue with replacing teleological language with more appropriate phrasing where possible. I wouldn't necessarily suggest that it's a top priority that it be purged, either, except in really egregious instances, but if somebody wants to do it and doesn't completely muck up the articles in the process, then good for them. It's not like they're wrong. Anaxial (talk) 23:07, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Agree with what Anaxial said. Plantdrew (talk) 03:37, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

OK, my view is that Wikipedia articles should reflect what is out there, not our own points of view. In biology articles, we should reflect what biologists write, and teleology in biology is certainly extremely common. It is not clear that teleological language can be removed - so I would agree with the "where possible" to the extent that, in general, it probably isn't possible, and will generally make the wording longer, more complex, more repetitive, and less direct than "to" (as in "to do xyz", "to evade predators"); it will also generally fail to solve the supposed problem.

To take Dinoguy2's example, "have adaptations that camouflage them from predators" is still implicitly teleological, the camouflaging from predators is a function, which can't help implying purpose, though biologists and probably all of us (as per DrChrissy), would deny any connection to natural theology. As for being right or wrong, Anaxial, the only thing that would be wrong here would be for an editor to change possibly thousands of articles to support their own editorial Point of View, something that is explicitly forbidden by policy. We shouldn't go there. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:39, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Teleological language can easily mislead the public into a false understanding of how evolution operates. Wikipedia should lead by example and strive to remove all teleological language. It's not top priority, but I think that situations where the teleological wording is preferable is very rare. In terms of policy, I recon the most relevant is therefore WP:OVERSIMPLIFY. (nb, like most evolutionary biologists I am very bad at actually following my own advice on this an frequently need to check my writing for exactly this issue) T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 11:53, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

I don't feel there is a top priority to purging articles (perhaps gradual removal might be a better plan), but I certainly think we need to be careful about adding to teleology. I write mainly in the animal behaviour, welfare and senses subject areas. This perhaps makes me more tuned in to teleology because we usually write very carefully to avoid anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism. For example, to say that an animal has a peak visual sensitivity to a particular frequency "to enable it to detect prey X" may be nonsense unless we know what other frequencies the animal can also visually detect (many, many animals have not been assessed for their visual sensitivity to UV radiation). DrChrissy ^(talk) 17:44, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Obviously claims need to be supported with reliable evidence, which in the case of adaptations is often lacking. Evolutionary biologists and philosophers of biology have for a century been worried about teleology in biology, but do not agree that it can actually be removed entirely. J.B.S. Haldane said it was like having a mistress - you don't want to be seen with her but you can't do without her. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:04, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree entirely with Chiswick Chap's more relaxed approach. We have seen the various devastations wrought recently by scientific fundamentalists in medical areas on Wikipedia. We should not be encouraging purist rots such as these to spread so easily. They expand into forms of fundamentalist moral indignation, encouraging fervent adherents that revel in launching tiresome, blinkered and obsessive crusades. --Epipelagic (talk) 10:21, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Epi, you may have forgotten I have been caught up in those and suffered two topic bans for daring to challenge them - I agree with you entirely. This is an issue which needs to be dealt with by reason and discussion.DrChrissy ^(talk) 19:17, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

By coincidence, I had been thinking of this issue in a slightly different context, i.e. how do we know in Batesian mimicry that species X is mimicking ("teleological phrasing") species Y? The 2 species might look similar to each other to us humans, but this is limited by the human sense of vision. I'm sure we have all seen those picture of flowers in UV light which make them look very different compared to when viewed in white light - do we take this into account when we declare a species to be a Batesian mimic? DrChrissy ^(talk) 16:41, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

At the very least, we should, but even that is only a proxy for actual evidence that a predator confuses the mimic with the model, and that the mimic is in fact not distasteful. At that point, one is perfectly justified in talking about function (such as mimicry) and adaptation. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:29, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

I just don't think those studies have been done. (I'm thinking out aloud here, so I could very well be wrong - please do not hesitate to correct me.) Have we seen preference tests indicating attraction and/or aversion of predators to the sight/taste of the mimics? By the way, please don't think I am about to head off and start purging as this thread-title indicates...I'm simply chatting with like-minded people. DrChrissy ^(talk) 18:42, 1 August 2016 (UTC)#

Exactly, all such studies are difficult to do - they have rarely been done in cases of camouflage and mimicry (for example), so a great deal of talk is just that. On the other hand, when there is good evidence of function, I really can't see why we shouldn't say that something is an adaptation or has a function - it's incredibly cumbersome to avoid, and for imperceptible gain. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:55, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm probably staying rooted in my own subject of animal behaviour, articles of which can become totally ripe with teleological lay-person interpretations about why animals behave the way they do. (e.g. "my cat rubs its chin on me because he loves me" - whereas it is more likely he is scent-marking) I'm happy talking about adaptations, after all, if something exists and can be observed, it would be nonsense to deny this. However, we also need to remember that science can not prove a hypothesis about a function, the results can only be consistent or inconsistent with the hypothesis, they can not "prove" it. DrChrissy ^(talk) 19:13, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Another point is that "have adaptations that camouflage them from predators" is simply wrong if it is attempting to imply that the camouflage is purely accidental. The steps which led to the result were accidental, but the whole point of evolution is that a bunch of random steps can lead to a helpful result (see Evolved antenna). Human observers are rarely certain about anything in a field as complex as biology, so it's conceivable that the camouflage that we see is not the beneficial adaptation, but writing "camouflaged to evade predators" would often be an accurate summary of authoritative views. Of course more elaborate examples of teleological language suggesting a design plan should be rewritten. Johnuniq (talk) 00:08, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

More than just making "another point", Johnuniq has shown up the central issue, which is that when teleological language is a shorthand for "this feature came about through millions of years of evolution by natural selection acting on a population containing diverse alleles created by mutation, .... etc etc, and organisms with this feature survived and reproduced, most likely, as shown by Doe, Buggins and Gradgrind (2016), because it helps camouflage them from predators", then well-chosen words like "to", "function", and "adaptation" are to put it mildly sensible and helpful. Purging them in that situation is, well, misguided. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:38, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

As the ip editor Chiswick originally posted about, I would like to make clear that my edits in wikipedia are modest and occasional, mainly minor corrections and rephrasings, with occasional longer contributions which have survived, some for years. I do usually carefully rephrase minor examples of teleological or anthromorphic language and always strive for a NPOV. In discussing evolution, evidence, or the ability to test our hypotheses, can be hard to come by. For me, his implies that we need to conduct ourselves like Heinlein's Fair Witness. We may be reasonably sure about the the functionality we deduce, but if we are to be scientific, our descriptions of what we know need rigour. Adopting the phrasings of teleology because is convenient, and because everybody else does it, I would suggest is a bad habit, which sets a bad example. Rephrasing should be acceptable, not as a campaign or a particularly high priority, but because teleologically phrased descriptions are open to very simple objections, which was the case for my edits to Cicada and Mantis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.3.255.103 (talk) 21:08, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

WikiFactMine: Proposed Wiki Grant for biological Wikidata

We are proposing a Wikimedia Project Grant (WikiFactMine) which will automatically scan the daily peer-reviewed scientific literature (up to 10000 articles /day) and extract biological entities (definable in Wikidata). We concentrate on genes and species which have high precision and recall. These, with their citations, are then offered to Wikidata editors for potential inclusion/update. These can also alert Wikipedia editors to new citations. The project includes a Wikimedian in residence in the University of Cambridge. We'd be grateful for comments, endorsement and offers of help.Petermr (talk) 10:37, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Category move for discussion

There is a proposal being discussed for moving (or renaming) Category:Science organizations by topic to Category:Organizations by academic discipline. The discussion is here [1] (at CfD). ----Steve Quinn (talk) 03:07, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Species and specific names and epithets

I am confused by the mess of articles on species name. One includes genus and species: Botanical name, which Specific name (botany) and Specific epithet (botany) redirect to. The other only includes species: Specific name (zoology). There is a section in the Genus article on words used as names for genera, but no section in Species on words used as names for species across all forms of life (the second, not the first, part of the binomen). And there is an article on Binomial nomenclature, which is basically the same concept as Botanical name, except wider. And there is an article on species name, which is also the same concept as Binomial nomenclature and Botanical name! And then there is Scientific name, which usually refers to genus and species, but redirects to the even broader concept of Nomenclature § Scientific nomenclature.

I feel like the species epithets for all forms of life should be covered in the one article. The grammatical features of the epithet are shared between plants, animals, and the rest of the forms of life. From my observation, a species epithet is usually a Latin/Greek/macaronic nominative noun, nominative adjective, or genitive noun.

But I'm not sure where this description should go or what term would be most broadly applicable across different subdisciplines of biology. Which of the many articles on related concepts should it be put into? It's bewildering. — Eru·tuon 23:48, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

You might have better luck asking about this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life. As to where to put information about the grammatical derivation of epithets, it could go in several of the articles you mentioned, as well as List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names. Plantdrew (talk) 00:10, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Mammal for GA

I've nominated Mammal for GAN. Please start the review if you feel like it. Thanks   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:08, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Taxoboxes and taxa lists with unresolvable reference links

Today, I went looking for Johnston, 1865 with regard to the taxobox in Serpulidae.

This reminded me of an earlier one: Louis, 1897 in the list for Diadematidae at Pedinothuria (which The Banner recently unlinked).

For those of us who are not sufficiently trained in biology, these tags are a bit of a mystery. Is there a central authority where these initial identifications of taxa can be looked up, using just these (name,year) tags? I recognize a few famous names among the tags, Agassiz (which someone figured out was Alexander, not Louis), Linnaeus, Mortenson; and, in general, someone has taken care to point most of the links to their respective scientists' articles, but no other references are left behind to substantiate these identifications. I see via Google searches that this system is widely used, but have not yet stumbled upon the key.

While I'll accept a response of "go away, we'll take care of this", but I would like to help and also to point out that the "Louis, 1897" one had been tagged as needing disambiguation all the way back in November 2011 with the only resolution being to unlink it nearly 5 years later.  —jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 04:47, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

For Pedinothuria, Louis, 1897 might be a mistake. Online directories, such as [2] and [3] list the reference as Gregory, 1897, p. 119, with the full work as

Gregory, J. W. 1897. On the affinities of the Echinothuridae, and on Pedinothuria and Helikodiadema, two genera of Echinoidea. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, London 53, 112-122.

I think it would be best to list out these (name, year) tags as full citations in the References section, especially if the taxon does not yet have its own article with more detail. --Mark viking (talk) 06:51, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

The thing is, they are not reference tags. They are an integral part of the taxonomic system. Listing the authority after the taxon is done for both the ICZN and the ICBN. There is no central database of authorities however, and it usually requires digging to identify the author of older taxa.--Kevmin § 12:36, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

You are correct, of course, these authorities aren't just Harvard style citations. But without any references backing an asserted taxon-authority link, it is hard to know if it is correct. Another example from above is Serpulidae. The taxobox asserts Johnston, 1865 as the authority. But the WoRMS online database [4] says the authority is Rafinesque, 1815, as does this Zootaxa paper. It looks like another mistake, or at least a disagreement and for those it is best to have sources. --Mark viking (talk) 13:49, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

BioRxiv support in citations

Main page: Help_talk:Citation_Style_1 § BioRxiv_support

This project's feedback would be appreciated in this discussion, as this could greatly (and positively) affect biological citations! Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:51, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Baracktrema obamai

I have created a stub for Baracktrema obamai in the wake of today's announcement of its discovery and naming. However, Biology articles are not exactly my area of expertise, so I will leave any further article development to somebody else. Might want to keep an eye on it over the next day or so, as I am sure it will be the target of unwanted attention, in the wake of the media announcements. Safiel (talk) 20:32, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

"Biogeographic realms" and "ecozones"

There is a proposition to change the use of the term "ecozone" in Wikipedia, see Talk:Ecozone.Zorahia (talk) 17:09, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Red cell antigens

Participants in this WikiProject are invited to participate in a discussion to determine the use for the term/redirect Red cell antigens. The discussion can be found here. Steel1943 (talk) 19:22, 22 September 2016 (UTC)