Talk:Phytogeography
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versus Phylogeography
editIs this different from Phylogeography. Is the name a typo? Pfly 20:16, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
No, Phytogeography indeed it is a real term and it is distinct from Phylogeography. phytogeography is a sub discipline of biogeography in the same way that zoogeography is a sub discipline of biogeography. Biogeography is the study of the geographical or spatial distribution of life. For zoogeography substitute animals for life and for phytogeography substitute plants for life. I have taken this article because I was surprised there was nothing on it (note there is a page on zoogeography). It is a difficult article to write because there are divergent views on how to organize biogeography in general. The term does have a long history with connotations of more specific meaning; this is something I am looking into. Threelovemonkeys 00:25, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
- Ah, I see -- phyto- meaning "plants" (I didn't know that), and phylo- referring to "phylum", apparently. I guess I could have looked it up. The OED has an entry for phytogeography. Thanks for the response! Pfly 02:40, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Shame
editThis stub is a shame for Wikipedia, a subject of this importance, in Encyclopaedia Britannica on the contrary it is reasonable. Berton 03:28, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Shame?!
editHow on earth is this article a shame? please explain in more detail. It is short, but it is modeled in part on the zoogeography page, which is a sister subject of phytogeography. I am wondering if the problem is that many people have a narrow view of what phytogeography is, namely an old system of classifying geographical patterns of plants, when in fact the term by its very name can be construed to mean anything about plants that is geographical. That would include evolutionary plant biogeography, the study of the geography of plant biodiversity and climate, intraspecific genetic geography, plant genomic geography, plant phylogeography, plant historical biogeography, plant ecological biogeography, the study of plant abundance, ecogeographical rules (the list goes on). Is this semantic dispute the root of this problem? If so, I think it makes sense to add a paragraph about how the term has been used in the past. And how do we change that rating? I dispute that it is in the lowest class of articles. By the way, I agree that the subject is very important (because the large number subjects phytogeography encompasses, see above) and needs more attention. Threelovemonkeys (talk) 14:49, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
- Don't worry about the "shame" comment (over 6 months old at this point) - it isn't specific enough to mean much. As for the "rating", if you mean the article assessment for wikiproject plants, the scale is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/Assessment. Note that the current assessment is importance "high" (matching your "the subject is very important"), class stub (matching your "needs more attention"). So there seems to be a fair bit of agreement here. In any case, improving the article is the real point here; the assessment system is just a means to improving articles, not the end in itself. Kingdon (talk) 15:14, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Ok, that makes sense. And about my question about different interpretations of the subject. I am even thinking that maybe phytogeography might be a good subject for disambiguation. I don't know how to do this, but it might make sense given that the term has historically been used to describe a geographical classification scheme, but the word means plant geography which then takes a wider meaning. I think it would be good to explain that there are different interpretations of the term and maybe even have two articles for the terms. What do you think? Threelovemonkeys (talk) 15:23, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
- I would think that classifications are dealt with at Phytochorion (which floristic province currently redirects to), and this article is for the broader subject. So I'd be a little bit skeptical of creating a third article. In this case, I would think the disambiguation in question would be a sentence in the body of the article saying something like "a phytogeography can also mean a classification scheme" (you can read up at Wikipedia:hatnotes or Wikipedia:Manual of style (disambiguation pages) regarding other mechanisms, but those wouldn't be my first instinct in this situation). However, what I say should be taken with a grain of salt, given my limited knowledge of phytogeography and the terminology thereof. Kingdon (talk) 15:39, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I think phytochorian is a unit or pattern studied in the subject of phytogeography (historical sense) and so couldn't be interchanged with phytogeography itself. I was being a little ambiguous using the term "classification scheme", I just meant it was a set of methods for classifying empirical patterns of taxonomic similarity or differences between world and regional floras. My main point was to highlight that this interpretation of phytogeography is not inclusive of other phytogeography or plant geography subjects as I mentioned above. So I don't know, we'll see how much people are married to the older sense of the term phytogeograpy. If people are alright with treating the subject in one article with a paragraph explaining the differences in how the term can be construed then I am happy with that. Thanks for the thoughtful discussion. Threelovemonkeys (talk) 15:53, 21 January 2008 (UTC)