Wikipedia:WikiProject Ecoregions

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Contents

[edit] Strategy and scope

An ecoregion, sometimes called a bioregion, is "a relatively large area of land or water that contains a geographically distinct assemblage of natural communities."

This WikiProject aims to create articles about each of the 867 terrestrial ecoregions in Earth's 8 major ecozones, using a consistent naming scheme. The articles should be cross-referenced with relevant biology, ecology, physical geography and climate, and nation-state articles.

Ecoregions aren't going away - ever, we hope (if they all go away, we die). They are an obvious and objective way to understand physical geography and enable organization of ecology and climate data, including ranges of animals and plants.

The project should allow users to navigate logically from the entire planet Earth/Terra down into the ecozones and ecoregions, and their bordering rivers, seas, and oceans.

[edit] Naming

Ecoregion articles should be named per the WWF definitions. WWF sometimes uses slight variations in ecoregion names or capitalization, so default to wikipedia conventions regarding capitalization, and create redirects for all likely variations in naming and capitalization.

[edit] Formatting

Examples of fully documented ecoregions

Templates for this structure can be found at :PA1303

PA0906

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Ecoregions/Temp

An ecoregion entry includes:

  • The ecozone it is contained within
  • Any oceans or seas that it borders
  • The rivers that flow through it
  • Surface covered by the ecoregion
  • A list of alternative names for the ecoregion in native languages, ideally those of the most aboriginal inhabitants, Latin, French, and English, and those official languages of any nations that intersect with it
  • Its current best-known borders, in terms of the meta:spacetime DTD
  • A precise definition for the ecoregion, containing links to the biological/botanic and climatic concepts that are involved in it;
  • A list of links to any generalizations, categories of ecoregions that this one is an example of, e.g. "tropical"
  • A list of links to the species of plants (botanical) that grow, in what types of soil, and links to these
  • A list of links to native animals organized from top predator down through lesser predators, then herbivore/prey animals and plants they feed on.
  • A list of links to non-native plants and animals introduced by humans, and a description of how they have impacted native ones
  • Conservation status as defined by... (need to established whose conservation status to use)
  • A list of links to relevant Wikipedia articles, e.g. on the likely impact of climate change or sea level rise on the region - this should avoid the question of "whether the change will occur" and concentrate on what happens IF it occurs, only
    • The industries conducted in the region
    • The cultures of the region, comprehensive, with languages
    • The ecological challenges facing the region, e.g.

Sumatran rainforest, on orang-utan and ape extinction and deforestation:

A proposal to build an XML DTD for this purpose is at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Ecoregions/ecoregionDTD, which is necessarily dependent on the Wikipedia:WikiProject_Ecoregions/spacetime DTD.

[edit] Describing

  • Ecozone
  • Biome
  • Climate
  • Soil
  • Surface
  • Oceans/rivers
  • Natural resources (presence of oil, coal, fish, woods, agricultural potential...)
  • ecoregion versus political borders
  • human cultures (language, religion...)
  • use of land and resources
  • abuse, conflicts and threats (ecological damages, political issues relying on bordering issues, ressources appropriation...)
  • predation
    • hunting
    • fishing
    • fruit gathering
  • deforestation
  • planning of humid areas, littorals, rivers
  • sol degradation to desertification
  • invasive species through domestication

[edit] Defining

[edit] Biogeography

[edit] Ecozones

[edit] Biomes

[edit] Climate

Great climate types of the world, including:

[edit] Soils

We could use the FAO classification, as it is a worldwide one, widely accepted and translated in many languages.

  • Issue 1 : the main map is "fair use" : could we ask for it, might we just put a link to it ?
  • Issue 2 : the main map is not precise enough 1:5000000, to easily find references of soil types for each ecoregion. There is another more precise map.

http://www.fao.org/ag/agl/agll/wrb/wrbmaps/htm/soilres.htm

soil - FAO soil classification -- http://www.fao.org/ag/agl/agll/wrb/wrbmaps/htm/soilres.htm

[edit] Participants

  • This WikiProject was proposed by Earth, itself, fed up by itchy humans on its surface.
  • Right. Earth ability is limited to do the job herself. And it fits very well in my biodiversity focus, so I'll help a bit User:anthere
  • Curious about how Earth proposed this. Though I recognize that she is fed up, which I suppose is enough. I will help. Sunray 17:26, 2004 Jan 15 (UTC)
  • Tom Radulovich
  • Lots of work to do here, so i reckon I'm in. Oh BTW, see m:Ecoregion DTD on meta. Quinobi 20:55, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Ombudsman 22:19, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
  • -- bcasterline • talk 04:37, 1 June 2006 (UTC) despite obvious inactivity. Articles on biogeography (still) badly need some sort of standardization.

[edit] Related Wikiprojects

[edit] Parentage

[edit] Sibling WikiProjects

[edit] Descendant Wikiprojects

Wikipedia:WikiProject Amazon Rainforest, Wikipedia:WikiProject Sahara Desert, Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian Desert, Wikipedia:WikiProject Sumatran_Rainforest, etc., as these are interesting and expertise is recruited on each.

[edit] See also

WikiProject Ecoregions : another way to see the World

[edit] Links to French-language Wikipedia

[edit] External links

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