Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Antarctic krill

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[edit] Antarctic krill

After much discussion I want to sponsor this article again. All objections and suggestions and language have been worked on, references added, some images moved off. An academic group from Australia, USA, Germany, Japan and Norway found no errors. Thanks go especially to user:lupo, User:Yakuzai and in Scandinavia to User:Salleman. The article covers the basic biology, ecology, geography, fisheries and some unique bio-features of this key species of Antarctica, which is probably (in terms of biomass) the most successfull animal of the planet (yet known to only a few), and gives an outlook for future ventures of Ocean Engineering (I contributed to the article).

• nominate and support Uwe Kils 18:10, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)
• Object, it is clearly evident that a lot of work went into this article since the last time you submitted it, but the problem can be fixed. The article needs some variation in the positioning of the pictures, and there still may be too many. Phoenix2 18:32, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

thanks for your comment, Phoenix2, I moved images out but others moved them back in Uwe Kils 18:34, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

Support, ready to be featured after lots of hard work. Phoenix2 00:00, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It's a potential FA, just wait to see what others think. Phoenix2 18:41, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Support this time around. It's still a little text-light, or maybe it just seems that way because of the wealth of quality images, but it has greatly improved. --Scimitar 19:25, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)*
• Support The only thing i would add more to is the section on eyes, oh yeah and maybe renaming subheading from "Systematic" to "Morphology" as that would in my view be more comprehensible to the average reader. I think as it stands it is a very comprehensible article that is informative and interesting with some great supplementary images.Yakuzai 23:08, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Support- it is amazing how much this article has improved since the beginning of its first FAC. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 23:44, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Support - much improved! — Catherine\^talk 02:25, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Support I (?re)reoriented the pictures in an alternating fashion, and did some edits toward the end, where the redo had tailed off a bit. This was largely gilding the lily, as I think the meat of the article, in its newly rewritten state, had already made it feature quality. Sfahey 04:20, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Minor object, I find the way the citations have been done to be quite hard to follow, a simple numbering system would be better. I raised this in the last FAC, the graphs need better captions. --nixie 05:28, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

thank you for the comment - I added to the captions where senseful - I agree with Lupo on the numbering of refs - we will kep on putting more in (maybe change it in the end) - best greetings to Australia Uwe Kils 12:27, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

Big improvement on the captions, and adding the bullet poitns to the references list has made it much easer to read, Support--nixie 00:29, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Support, of course, even though I don't like the alternating left-right image placement at all; it makes the article looke piecemeal. To nixie: we once had a numbered reference scheme, and it's a maintenance nightmare. Two references are in image captions, they both got shown as "[1]", and somehow it made the numbering in the main texts start at 2, and it was very difficult and maintenance-intensive to make the ref numbers agree with the list at the end. (A ref reading "[7]" should indeed go the an entry numbered "7", otherwise it's worse than useless.) The current scheme uses symbolic references as they are common in many scientific papers (it's a scheme I have used successfully in all my peer-reviewed publications) and doesn't have that problem. Lupo 06:37, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I also like the images better on the right - change them back Uwe Kils 11:37, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

• Support, on balance: I suspect that there is probably more to be said, but the nominator ought to know what should be in the article. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:12, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Much better now. Can we get the lists at the bottom formatted as * lists? Morwen - Talk 12:30, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

hallo Morven - we still collect more (see comment of Lupo, who did most of the ref work) later we might change it Uwe Kils 12:34, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

• Support. Interesting and informative. One suggestion: It would be nice to include a little more on what eats the Antarctic krill other than the very brief "Position in the Antarctic ecosystem" section. BlankVerse ∅ 13:10, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

thank you for the comment - I added some more, will later add some on the whales Uwe Kils 14:20, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

added whale birds squid seal fish consumption data from Hampton Uwe Kils 17:38, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

• Support because what is there is great, but I'd still like to see more effort on providing explanation of jargon, and more context for many of the overly technical bits. Older Comment: great stuff, especially the thorough citation. If there's anything factually incorrect in there, a knowledgeable person could find it easily. But it seems the most imporant points have avoided citation. Specifically claims of the largest biomass, the specific amount of the biomass, and speculation of the largest biofeedback mechanism. This is enough to object on, but I'm assuming you can get those citations easily enough, so I'll support once you have. Also the citation system is confusing. What is the difference between Kils79 and H+83? Also, what is meant by directly utilizing the phytoplankton cells? What would be not direct? There are other examples of writing that appears like it would be clear to someone knowledgeable in the subject, but is a bit hard to parse for someone like me. I'll try and help if you like, or just go through and add some inline context for places where people might get confused. - Taxman ^Talk 14:34, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

• thank you for the extensive comment, I will work on it - direct: means not over the traditional food chain phytoplankton small copepods, large copepods, mysids, little fish - biomass: this is much disputed, in lack of methods and because of the huge area we do really not know much - I was on a venture with 11 research vessels fron 10 nations, and we still have only a vague idea of the stock in Scotia Sea alone - and much krill lives under the ice - Uwe Kils 14:44, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

• Sorry, but I understand that even less than I understand what is in the article. You mean that instead of going to progressively larger organisms a 6cm organism eats the phytoplankton? Well then just say that! Actually part of the rest of the article does I think, so just explain it a little more. The whole of the text is rather terse, so explaining some biology bits with very short (a few words sometimes) bits of context goes a long way and wouldn't be too wordy. - Taxman ^Talk 00:56, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

is this better?: "The size-step between krill and its prey is unusually large: generally it takes three or four steps from the 20 micrometer-tiny phytoplankton cells to a krill-sized organism (via small copepods, large copepods, mysids to 5 cm fish)^[KK79]. The next size-step in the food chain to the whales is also enormous, a phenomenon only found in the Antarctic ecosystem." Uwe Kils 02:46, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

• it says not largest biomass but animal biomass Uwe Kils 14:59, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

• Ah yes, I saw that, but didn't specify. - Taxman ^Talk 00:56, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

The "Kils79" ref should have been "KK79". Fixed it. The system for deriving the symbols is pretty simple: if there's only one author, use the first few (3 or 4) letters of his last name. If there are multiple authors, use only the first (upper case) character of each last name. If there are many authors, use the first and add a "+". In all cases, append a two- (or for short symbols, four-) digit year. Break ties by appending lower case letters, beginning with "a". Lupo 14:55, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've never heard of that system but it sounds standard. Could you either explain it at the bottom or link to an article explaining it? As for the rest, it sounds like you guys will work that out well. - Taxman ^Talk 00:56, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

It's the "alpha.bst" style from BibTeX, used widely in Computer Science publications (and maybe in other fields, too). For an example where it's used, see Design Patterns by the "Gang of Four" (Gamma et al.). I do not know if that style corresponds to a recommendation by some style guide (it's neither APA, MLA, nor Chicago), but I somehow doubt that Patashnik just made it up. Lupo 07:06, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

On the biomass: the FAO05 reference gives estimates from 1985 as ranging from 125 to 725 million tonnes. Surely there must be a more recent estimate? The CCAMLR upped its catch quotas significantly (from 1.5 million tonnes to 5 million) after a change in the methodology of arriving at such estimates in the 1990s. I would also like to see a reference for the recently added statement thatCrabeater Seals supposedly eat 120 million tonnes of Antarctic krill each year. Even with the highest estimates, that would be one sixth of the total biomass! I find that hard to believe. Lupo 14:55, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

BONNER B 1995 Birds and Mammals - Antarctic Seals. in Antarctica Pergamon Press 202 - 222 I gave that on the crabeater page - the Antarctic is hard to believe - the high biomass estimations are based on what the whales once took (details are in Nicol, S.; Endo, Y.: Krill Fisheries of the World, FAO Fisheries Technical Paper 367; 1997) Uwe Kils 15:04, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

I looked it up, Bonner writes at least 63 million tonnes, so lets change it to this figure, I have in my notes 120, will try to find the source or call colleagues about it, but even 63 off one species is astounding, taken that the whole yield from all oceans and all species, fish, mulluscs, cephalopods, srimps ... is only about 100 million tonnes a year - some say the ants are the biggest, but that would be a collection of many species, others say the copepods, but that too are hundredth of species - E. s. is one species all over the Southern Ocean - Uwe Kils 15:20, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

• Support Made all of my comments on previous FA nomination page; thus support. Batmanand 19:32, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Support the article seems to be complete and is written in an understandable way. From looking around in other encyclopedias and in the internet I got the impression that this is the best article about this topic. Kudos to all authors and in particular to Uwe Kils -- mkrohn 01:31, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Beautiful article, and the Images are just so good. Though I can't get that last ref-note link in the intro to work (mn|nicol|NE97), it's missing, or something. Shanes 04:35, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Fixed. Lupo 06:43, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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I mirrored two comments from the first nomination down below to have a compact reference for our Wikiversity projects - thank you all for your help - it was a lot of fun to work with you - I think it is amazing what humans can create in no time if they work accross all boarders and ages with our new communication tools - good luck to you Uwe Kils 10:43, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

• (mirror)SUPPORT This is very different from the usual featured article format, but it is good. It explains in depth most of what (I would imagine) students of the subject need to know. I thought I was totally disinterested (still not riveted) by the subject, yet it held my attention to the end, and I have learned something. So in spite of being a little unconventional in its style and format, I have changed to support, now that it is reliably referenced. I would ask other objectors to give it a second read and see it accordingly for what it is, something well written and informative, on a subject little referred to elsewhere. Giano | talk 18:10, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• (mirror)Support I've rewritten the difficult systematic section to be more intelligible to the non-specialist, and I would now support this interesting article - perhaps pleopod could be explained also. jimfbleak 05:39, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Support Great article. Lisiate 23:08, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Support Worthy article. Alex.tan 04:38, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)