Talk:Monoicous

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Contents 1 dicdef 2 Accuracy suspicion 2.1 quotation 2.2 Webster 2.3 Bryologists 2.4 Russian language 3 Answer of user:Marsman 4 -oicous / -oecius 5 Synoecious not a synonym of autoecious

[edit] dicdef

You are creating a lot of confusion without much discussion with those that wrote much of the material you are moving all over the place. At Wikipedia, we try to avoid articles that are essentially dictionary definitions (that is what Wiktionary is all about), which seems to me to be what you are doing - Marshman 21:49, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

• While I agree with the general idea, I disagree that here is a mere dictionary definition. I am not a newcomer to wikipedia and I knew what I was doing. mikka (t) 23:12, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, not to say that it should not be moved to dictionary in any case: at worst, it should redirect to some kind of "plant sexuality" article. mikka (t) 00:28, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Accuracy suspicion

I collected various definitiond from several places in wikipedia. In particular, is it true that "Monoecious" and "Monoicous" are not the same? I find this rather suspicious: they derive from the same Greek and sound the same. I admit I am ignorant here, but to have so close-sounding terms in one and the same area of science is rather strange to me. mikka (t) 22:58, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

For example, http://www2.gardenweb.com/glossary/monoecious.html and http://dictionary.laborlawtalk.com/monecious say the terms are interchangeable. mikka (t) 23:10, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] quotation

Contradicts the strict distinction in wikipedia:

Of the other or monoicous sub-group of polygamous plants, or those which bear hermaphrodite, male and female flowers on the same individual, the common Maple (Acer campestre) offers a good instance; but Lecoq states that some trees are truly dioecious, and this shows how easily one state passes into another.

mikka (t) 23:18, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Webster

Both 1913 and Webster online:

Monoicous \Mo*noi"cous\, a. (Bot.)

Monoecious.

[edit] Bryologists

I've found a quotation which says that "icous" is a term of preference for bryologists, but it is still possible that other botanists freely mix/match "icous"/"ecious", as in one of the quotaitons above mikka (t) 23:26, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Russian language

Both terms are translated as "однодомный" the same calque from Greek "one house". mikka (t) 23:30, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Answer of user:Marsman

(moved from Talk:Plant sexuality) There was something at the bottom of that article under Bryophytes that suggested they are not the same. But the word is monoecious. I know not what monoicous means, but it seems to be a term used by lower plant biologists (mosses, algae, etc.) where sexuality is different from that displayed by the higher plants. A search of Google finds only a couple of articles that are not from Wikipedia that use the term "monoicous". Still, your collecting definitions together from articles is contrary to a direction we should go in. You are gathering them from articles where they were (in some cases) moved not too long ago to avoid a problem that the "Wikipedia is not a dictionary" policy is designed to clear up. If you are creating a page of related definitions, it will just get swept away as inappropriate for an encyclopedia. - Marshman 23:23, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

As you know, wikipedia is not an authoritative source. For example the same "bryophytes" article says that "Dioecious" is "two households" in Greek. Obviously some guy copied this from someone else without much thinking and checking facts. And this is "contrary to the direction we should go in". I accept only one direction: to make information clear, verifiable, readily available and cross-referenced. "Not a wiktionary" preacher does not stand here: as long as monoecious plants exist in real life, they deserve a separate article.

Some time ago someone tried to "prove" that clothespin (when it was a one-sentence stub) should be moved to wiktionary. Our ignorance is not an argument in such cases. If we don't know that there is nothing to say but dicdef, it does not mean that no one else cay say more. mikka (t) 00:01, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] -oicous / -oecius

The terms monoicous and dioicous refer to the sexuality of halpoid organisms, specifically whether a gametophyte produces one or both kinds of gametangia and gametes. The terms dioecious and monoecious refer to sporophytes that produce gametophytes on separate or the same diploid plant, respectively. --EncycloPetey 01:01, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

• References, please, from reputable biologists, and not from various online dictionaries which copy definitions fom each other without bothering about sources.

My original source was the material I learned in my Bryology course at Duke University from Dr. Brent Mishler (now at UC Berkeley) and Dr. Lewis Anderson (co-author of the two volume comprehensive treatment of the Mosses of Eastern North America). Dr. Anderson is one of the most respected bryologists of the twentieth century, and has published numerous papers on his original research. I did not use an on-line dictionary, and wouldn't trust one to get this kind of distinction in terminology correct without expert help. --EncycloPetey 08:45, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I did notice that experts in respective fields tend to differentiate the terminology. But the terms may be used interchangeably by some, and, what is more important, this hapens in older sources. There is no change reason not to interchange terms, since they are used for different types of organisms, and hence there is no potential for confusion. For example, the topic here is plant "sexuality", the same term as for animals ("sexuality"), and no one panics that the same term is applied to radically different ways of reproduction.

To my classsical Greek education this -oicous / -oecius is just as ridiculos distinction, as if someone started to insist that "foetus" and "fetus" are different words: the first one is, say, human post-embryo, and the latter one is for all other animals. mikka (t) 19:45, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

The analogy you make is not applicable to this situation. There are indeed biological concepts where one term is applied to humans and another to all other animals, and I too cringe at this pretentious silliness. In this case, however, the distinction in terminology reflects a basic difference in genetics. A monecious or dioecious organism has two complete sets of chromosomes in all of its cells, with the potential to undergo meiosis in sex cells and thereby produce eggs or sperm with virtually unlimited genetic variability. A monoicous or dioicous organism has a single set of chromosomes in all of its cells, with no potential for meiosis to occur. Instead, sex cells are formed through mitosis and will all be genetically indentical to each other and to the cells of the parent plant. The difference in terminology thus reflects a fundamental difference in biology.

The simplest direct reference I can quickly obtain is from Howard Crum's Structural Diversity of Bryophytes (p.66): "The terms dioicous (unisexual) and monoicous (bisexual) are generally used in reference to the haploid gametophytes of mosses, and other bryophytes, whereas dioecious and monoecious refer to the diploid sporophytes of higher plants." Crum acknowledges explicitly that (as you have also noted) the words are "merely different transliterations from the same Greek roots". While I do not have a copy at hand, I suspect that the Glossarium for bryological terms published by the Missouri Botanical Garden will also contain these terms.

And, yes, there is potential for confusion between the two sets of terms. While you will seldom hear a botanist who specializes in flowering plants use the term dioicous, it is applicable to flowering plants, since all flowering plants have two distinct kinds of gametophytes. In other words, while a flowering plant may be either monoecious or dioecious (in reference to the production of pollen and seeds), it will always be dioicous (in reference to the production of eggs and sperm). It is because this condition exists uniformly in all flowering plants that the term is seldom used by those botanists, and not because it does not apply.

No one panics over the term sexuality bing used for both plants and animals because it refers to the same fundamental biological process. While the details may look radically different on the surface, the underlying process is the same in both groups. Specifically, at some point in the life cycle a diploid cell undergoes meiosis to segregate the genetic information into four haploid cells. One of these haploid cells will undergo syngamy (fusion) with another haploid cell to form a diploid zygote with a new combination of genes. The prescence of this two step process that produces new genetic variety is the biological definition of "sex" (see Lynn Margulis' excellent book What is Sex?).

Note that I do not accept any argument that appeals to "older use" in scientific literature. Scientific terms change their meanings as a direct result of increased knowledge of the subject to which they apply. To regress to an older meaning is to deny the advances in scientific knowledge. In short, if you go to literature old enough, sponges are plants, geese are fish, and the seeds of ferns are not seen because they are invisible. I prefer instead to use the standard modern definitions of scientific terms and avoid archaic uses. --EncycloPetey 07:53, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Synoecious not a synonym of autoecious

In all of the botanical texts and dictionaries I've checked, the word autoecious is not a synonym of monoecious. Instead, it refers to a parasite (such as a Uredinalean fungus) that completes its life cycle on a single host. I have found at least one reference to autoicous in reference to bryophyte sexuality where both gametangia occur on a single branch (as opposed to separate branches of the same plant), but I still think calling syn- forms synonymous with aut- forms too sweeping unless someone can find the term applied to vascular plants. --EncycloPetey 04:23, 21 February 2006 (UTC)