Talk:Holdridge life zones

Some questions

Some questions, originally posted to Wikipedia Science Reference desk...

Here's some questions:

• Is the system based on two variables or three? The third variable (biotemperature) seems to be redundant to the other two, but then why is it defined in terms of the three variables? Historical reasons?

I would say two: precipitation and PET. Humidity is a function of these. As for biotemp, like everything else outside the triangles it appears to be a rough correlate. --Belg4mit (talk) 20:49, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

• Where and what-for is the system used today? Googling gives me the impression that it's popular for global warming predictions.
• What problems does it have? I read it was bad with monsoon areas as it doesn't take into account those sorts of extremes (but I can't find the article now). Also some places find it doesn't match soil types (e.g. Costa Rica) while others are happy to use it.
• What systems have replaced it for what purposes?
• I see citations for Holdridge with a few different dates. How has the system evolved?
• Holdridge seems to have come up with the term biotemperature, but is it used in other contexts?

Too many research papers are locked away behind pay-per-view sites, so finding details has been frustrating. And it's really not my area of expertise. Any help answering questions and improving the article (and the caption) would be appreciated, especially before it hits the main page: Holdridge life zones

—Pengo 03:37, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

And some more questions:

• Why doesn't the FAO have anywhere marked as "tropical rainforest"? [1]
• Is the above public domain or are there any freely licensed maps like it?
• Which WWF biomes map directly to Holdridge life zones? (e.g. TSMF does) —Pengo 06:50, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

PET statement unclear

The article states (and has done so since creation) that one axis is "potential evapotranspiration ratio (PET) to mean total annual precipitation." which seems rather nonsensical given that EV is not precipitation, and another axis is devoted specifically to the latter. --Belg4mit (talk) 20:49, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

References "behind" the reflist

ref>"Holdridge's Life Zones - UNEP-WCMC". UNEP-WCMC's official website - Holdridge's Life Zones. Retrieved 2022-03-23.</ref>

ref>Parry, Martin L.; Carter, Timothy R.; Konijn, Nicolaas T. (1988), Parry, Martin L.; Carter, Timothy R.; Konijn, Nicolaas T. (eds.), "The Effects on Holdridge Life Zones", The Impact of Climatic Variations on Agriculture: Volume 2: Assessments in Semi-Arid Regions, Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, pp. 473–484, doi:10.1007/978-94-009-2965-4_22, ISBN 978-94-009-2965-4, retrieved 2022-03-23</ref>

ref>Harris, Stuart A. (1973-08-01). "Comments on the Application of the Holdridge System for Classification of World Life Zones as Applied to Costa Rica". Arctic and Alpine Research. 5 (sup3): A187–A191. doi:10.1080/00040851.1973.12003733 (inactive 1 August 2023). ISSN 0004-0851.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of August 2023 (link)</ref>

ref>"holdridge life zone: Topics by Science.gov". www.science.gov. Retrieved 2022-03-23.</ref>

I suspect these were meant to form "Further reading" or the like? For now, I'll keep them here, until I someone else can figure out how to integrate them into this article later. While it is only Start-class, it nevertheless gets enough views to make its improvement comparatively important. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 12:39, 13 October 2023 (UTC)