Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ecoregions

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 15

Newsletter • September 2019

A final update, for now:

The third grant-funded round of WikiProject X has been completed. Unfortunately, while this round has not resulted in a deployed product, I am not planning to resume working on the project for the foreseeable future. Please see the final report for more information.

Regards,

-— Isarra ༆ 19:24, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Flora and fauna, "diagnostic"?

It's been a long time since I took an ecology class, but I seem to recall that ecoregions are defined (or was it "diagnosed") by their flora (and fauna?). Is this still done in practice? Is there a database or another (semi-)official way that lists the species for each ecoregion? Or do the secondary sources that initially describe an ecoregion list them? Abductive (reasoning) 04:12, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

The definition in "Terrestrial Ecoregions of North America - A Conservation Assessment" (WWF 1999, Island Press) is: "An ecoregion is defined as a relatively large area of land or water that contains a geographically distinct assemblage of natural communities. These communities (1) share a large majority of their species, dynamics, and environmental conditions, and (2) function together effectively as a conservation unit in global and continental scales". When I'm writing ecoregion articles, I therefore try to describe characteristic flora and fauna, any that are notable or endangered, and the main underlying drivers of what lives there - climate, soil, geomorphology, and species interrelationships. "Start" articles are pretty basic; once we have at least the basics for all ecoregions I expect to double back and add more detail. Every-leaf-that-trembles (talk) 06:43, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Could you give me a couple of examples of well fleshed-out articles? Abductive (reasoning) 09:34, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Here's an example of a C-class ecoregion article: Appalachian–Blue Ridge forests. And a Start-class example: Queensland tropical rain forests. The core external sources for these articles are the WWF and DOPA pages. For example, the WWF site's URL for the 'Queensland tropical rainforests' is https://www.worldwildlife.org/ecoregions/aa0117. To get any ecoregion's page just edit the ID code at the end of the URL (in this case "aa0117"). (Actually, WWF has let of of their pages go blank, but the information is either in the Wayback machine, or at a website called "Encyclopedia of the Earth"). The ecoregion codes can be found in the first column of my tracking checklist (User:Every-leaf-that-trembles/sandbox. For the DOPA page for the Queensland region, go to https://dopa-explorer.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ecoregion/10117. Notice that the URL also ends in '0117'; just edit the URL to get a different ecoregion. For visualizing the ecoregions on a world map, I use the interactive map at https://ecoregions2017.appspot.com/. I also have most of the printed reference books; let me know if there is anything I can do to help! Every-leaf-that-trembles (talk) 05:49, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Most ecoregions are defined by a predominant plant community. Some are ecoregions are relatively homogeneous, but others - particularly island ecoregions and mountain ecoregions – have more diverse vegetation types. Where I can find reliable sources I like to describe the main plant communities in the 'flora' section. That includes the predominant type or types - grassland, shrubland, savanna, woodland, forest, etc. - along with its characteristics. What is the typical height of the different layers? Do the trees form an open or closed canopy? Are the plants annual, perennial, or a mix? are they evergreen, deciduous, or a mix? What grows the understory? Are there many or few epiphytes? Listing the characteristic species and endemic or near-endemic species is also helpful, along with the total numbers of species and endemic species if you have access to those. For fauna I like to include the total number of species in different classes (mammals, birds, etc.), and the endemics and near-endemics. I also include the large herbivores and predators (if the ecoregion has any), along with as much about smaller animals as I can find. The WWF ecoregion profiles have a lot of useful information. The ecoregion articles at Encyclopedia of Earth mostly include the same text as the WWF profiles. Sometimes the WWF profiles focus on ecoregion endemics and provide little information on characteristic and important, but widespread, species, so you have to find other sources which confirm what those are. Birdlife International's Endemic Bird Areas and Important Bird Areas often correspond to ecoregion boundaries, and the IBA and EBA profiles often have full species lists. Some of the WWF ecoregion profiles are very scant, just a paragraph or two - that's the case for many European, Middle Eastern/Central Asian, Latin American, and Australian ecoregions. Tom Radulovich (talk) 19:18, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Working checklist of WWF ecoregions on EN-Wikipedia / Wikicommons / Wikidata Comment Suggestion

@Abductive and Tom Radulovich: Picking up from talk page: Every-leaf-that-trembles (talk) 06:54, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
My working list of WWF Ecoregions and their status on Wikipedia is **here**. If you think it would be useful to the group I could move it to a more public place on the Wikiproject Ecoregions site. I have other data fields like foreign wiki article links in progress. I'm trying to do a couple of new en-wiki ecoregion articles a week, and every once in a while I do a batch of maps for Wikicommons. There appears to be about 170 missing ecoregions articles, and about 250 missing maps, out of a total possible of 843 (2001 version). Every-leaf-that-trembles (talk) 06:23, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

This is great! A list like the one you created would be a very helpful addition to the project page. Another useful column would be the article's current quality rating - stub, start, C, etc. Some of the articles on your missing list actually exist; differences in spelling or capitalization may account for that. I uploaded a list that you can cross-reference against your own, here: User:Tom Radulovich/missing terrestrial ecoregion articles. Tom Radulovich (talk) 18:22, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I updated the format of my table, (see here), and started filling in the middle columns. It will probably take me a week to finish the input and cross check against your list. I can see that many of my redlinks are simply matters of improper capitalization. Thanks for your help. Every-leaf-that-trembles (talk) 04:48, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Full checklist added

@Abductive and Tom Radulovich: I added my full checklist to this Wikiproject directory: A checklist of Terrestrial Ecoregions on EN-Wikipedia. Note that there is a column for "redirects", as there are quite a few ecoregions that are being represented by a geographic article that may or may not be accurate (I checked the names against the WWF, DOPA, and EOE datasets; see the right-hand column for links to the sources). Eventually we should have a separate article for each ecoregion, possibly with a "main" template added to point to the geographic area. In columns with "1"s, that means that factor applies to the article, so that sums could be added to the bottom of the table. Thoughts? Every-leaf-that-trembles (talk) 06:37, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

That is very informative. Abductive (reasoning) 06:55, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Looks great! I added a few articles written in the last few months. Tom Radulovich (talk) 00:47, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for cleaning up my oversights. As you can tell, I did not automate the collection of most of the fields, but I did try to confirm the actual ecoregion names against the DOPA/EOE pages which seem to follow the original WWF database pretty closely. The Ecoregion Project should probably have a policy regarding redirects - many are just naming differences, but many are not contiguous with the geographic articles (the tiny Cayman Islands have three different ecoregions). Going forward, I'll be updating this table as I make changes to articles. I created two new ecoregion articles today, so my redlink count comes down to 117. Every-leaf-that-trembles (talk) 05:25, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Can the redlinks be added to the list? Abductive (reasoning) 07:39, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for doing all the work to set it up; it's been a useful tool in organizing ecoregion 'to-dos', and a real asset to the project. Naming can be fiddly. WWF is not entirely consistent about naming and capitalization for their scheme. The convention for the ecoregion project on Wikipedia has been to capitalize proper nouns in ecoregion names, and use lowercase for the rest. There are a few articles - Sonoran Desert, Thar Desert, Caledonian Forest, etc. - where it probably makes sense to stick with the widely-used capitalization. There are a small number of ecoregions for which the WWF designation probably ought to continue to redirect to an existing article about the same place, but with a more widely-used name - Niger Inland Delta, Sudd, Mesopotamian Marshes. In those instances the WWF name can be mentioned as an 'also known as' in the text, and in the infobox. The WWF designation for the Sudd - Saharan flooded grasslands - is silly anyway; the Sudd isn't in the Sahara. For some of the Australian ecoregions there's an IBRA bioregion with the same boundaries but a different name. Same with some of the EPA ecoregions in the US. In those instances it's a judgement call and a consensus-building exercise about which main article name to use. Tom Radulovich (talk) 17:52, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I requested moving the article about the Llanos ecoregion to Llanos as the primary article; it's currently at the awkwardly-named Los Llanos (South America), and "Llanos" is a disambiguation page. You can opine on the proposed move here.

Sundarbans

Can someone lend a hand here? It seems some sections in the article are completely devoid of cites and sources. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 05:21, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Los Llanos (South America) listed at Requested moves

A requested move discussion has been initiated for Los Llanos (South America) to be moved to Llanos. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 04:17, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

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Stewart Island listed at Requested moves

A requested move discussion has been initiated for Stewart Island to be moved to Stewart Island / Rakiura. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 02:02, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

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Requesting some inputs

Greetings,

Requesting your visit to article Black Sea and inputs on splitting and restructuring @ Talk:Black Sea#Some article restructuring and overhaul

• Also please do have a look at Talk:Black Sea#Coastal cities, requesting help; and help expand Black Sea#Coastal and port cities on Black Sea coast and trade.

Thanks and warm regards

Bookku (talk) 15:28, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

NT0403 San Félix-San Ambrosio Islands temperate forests vs San Félix–San Ambrosio Islands temperate forests (dash vs emdash)

I noticed Wikipedia:WikiProject Ecoregions/Terrestrial Ecoregion Checklist points to San Félix-San Ambrosio Islands temperate forests (with a hyphen), instead of San Félix–San Ambrosio Islands temperate forests (with an emdash). Cf with List of terrestrial ecoregions (WWF), which points to the emdash version. Also, this might be a broader question, but does the project track ecoregions that are just sections folded into larger articles about the geographic area? -Furicorn (talk) 10:05, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

On closer inspection, looks like the Ecoregion checklist link was a mask for Islas Desventuradas. I'm also noting that San Felix-San Ambrosio Islands temperate forests is a redirect to the article on the Islands, but not San Félix-San Ambrosio Islands temperate forests - both link styles should probably eventually point to the ecoregion article at San Félix–San Ambrosio Islands temperate forests. -Furicorn (talk) 10:14, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Split proposal for Great Migration (Serengeti)

A split proposal is in progress for Serengeti to Draft:Great Migration (Serengeti). Please discuss in at Talk:Serengeti#Split with your thoughts. Thank you. AngusW🐶🐶F (bark • sniff) 17:10, 4 May 2021 (UTC)