Talk:Primary production

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents 1 Production vs. Productivity 2 Photosynthesis vs. Chemosynthesis 3 Quality standards 4 Wiki Chapter 5 Merge (May 2006) 6 Somebody please check this statement... 7 Merge (March 2007)

[edit] Production vs. Productivity

Production (or rate of production) is a quantitative term e.g. "...the annual production was..."

However,

Productivity (i.e. fertility) is a qualitative term e.g. "a period of high productivity"

[edit] Photosynthesis vs. Chemosynthesis

I believe that primary production was restricted only to photosynthesis and doesn't include chemosynthesis?

I've a feeling that's just a practical consideration. Chemosynthesis isn't quantitatively significant (as far as we know), and in the ocean occurs far away from the surface (so doesn't play a role in the biological pump). But it does still represent the transfer of external (chemical) energy to chemical energy (in organisms), so legitimately is primary production. Cheers, --Plumbago 17:29, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quality standards

Over the past week, I've tried to upgrade and extend this article to more comprehensively cover the topic. It's still missing some information (e.g. terrestrial measurement techniques), but otherwise is a marked improvement over what we had before (he says, arrogantly). Anyway, unless anyone objects, I'll remove the "Quality" flag currently on the article. Cheers, --Plumbago 17:52, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wiki Chapter

This is a tough topic... hitting this page a couple weeks ago got me started on Wiki's. We practically need a chapter to cover it, not just a page... especially with both terrestrial and aquatic production together. I'm sure someone will come along and add some chemosynthesis information soon. If this is an overview, it should be included... Take care Kefisher 22:30, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't know that we need a chapter on it. Like other articles in the WP, this is essentially a summary of the topic. Most articles only skim the surface of their topics. If you want, one obvious way forward is to dismember the article into oceanic, terrestrial and chemosynthetic articles, and leave the overview material here. But I don't think that's entirely necessary : much of what could be added (e.g. photosynthesis itselF) is covered in other articles already. Still, separating out production in different biomes might be one way to go.

I should add that I'm grateful to the anon who added a whole lot more to the oceanic production end of things. I think your text could be tightened a bit, but it's a sterling addition. Cheers, --Plumbago 08:17, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

That anon was me... before I figured out how to register... but someone else hit it after I did and tightened up some of it. I wrote pretty fast... I'm supposed to be working, but this is abit addictive... Take care- Kefisher Kefisher 20:31, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I think it might have been me "tightening up". I'm sort-of one for paring things down to essential information (so as to avoid article bloat), but I probably remove too much at times, so please revert any changes I make that you disagree with. Cheers, --Plumbago 08:09, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge (May 2006)

I reckon primary productivity should be redirected here, and what information there is on it moved here - it's basically a stub. I'll do this later this week unless there are any objections. Cheers, --Plumbago 08:26, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Somebody please check this statement...

"Most frequently, a biome's peak standing biomass is assumed to measure net primary production."

I'm pretty sure this is blatantly incorrect, but don't have time to check on it. If you do, please do so. Standing biomass and primary production can be entirely unrelated, the best example being estuaries, where biomass is low but productivity extremely high. This statement came from the NPP article, which also has other errors and problems. Jeeb 02:40, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

My bad. I lifted it from the (somewhat ropey, to my eye) page on net primary productivity when I was expanding the terrestrial production section (which previously simply pointed the reader in the direction of the article). I'm not au fait with methods on terrestrial systems at all, so please edit away. As you can probably tell from my edits (and the length of the section I've worked and reworked), it's oceanic production that I'm more familiar with! Cheers, --Plumbago 12:20, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

...and you've made a real valuable contribution there, I might add, since most people are more familiar with terrestrial systems than oceanic (I'm guessing). And I realize you were just trying to beef up the pointer to the NPP article that I inserted. If I get time I'll work on it, but I'm not really a methods person either, so it involves some reading.

I also think a discussion of energy use efficiency (i.e. % of available energy captured at each step of the process) would be a valuable addition to the article. Jeeb 15:58, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Just an aside, might it be an idea to combine the net and gross primary production articles into a single article? The distinction between them is fairly straightforward (... to explain, but not to measure), and I'd feel a bit better directing readers to a single comprehensive article on terrestrial production rather than two smaller ones. Just a thought. --Plumbago 09:19, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Another idea might be to just incorporate the concepts of GPP and NPP into this article (which they already are to a limited extent), and do away with both. Actually I see three possible dichotomies in which 2 articles result: (1) PP concepts vs PP measurement/methods, (2) terrestrial PP vs aquatic PP, or (3) GPP vs NPP. I think I lean toward the first... Jeeb 15:29, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I think your suggestion of (1) is a good one. Number (2) is reasonable, but number (3) would just be confusing and an unnecessary complication. My only concern with (1) is that the article on measurement might be a bit short. Although I rewrote a fair chunk of the measurement section, I'm skating close to the limits of my expertise (I'm a modeller, not an observationalist), so wouldn't be able to add much more to flesh it out. Anyway, in the first instance, maybe fusing GPP and NPP here would be useful. Probably not make it terrestrial specific, as the same applies in aquatic systems (although the actual mechanisms that separate GPP and NPP can be somewhat different, at least when it comes to measurement). If the result gets too long, then we can consider splitting it. Cheers, --Plumbago 08:15, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

The most important overall point, IMO, is that the topic be presented clearly and be well-organized. I agree that fusing GPP and NPP into this article (is that what you meant?) is useful. In fact, I don't see why we necesarily need 2 articles at all at this point, my comments above notwithstanding. I'm limited on the time I can give to it in the near future, so have at it if you can...Jeeb 19:29, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge (March 2007)

It seems that both the gross primary production and net primary production articles should be merged with this one. GPP is currently flagged for possible merging, but not NPP. It seems especially odd that the NPP article is strictly terrestrial, since the concept is not. Also, there is data on the trophic level page about the productivity of different ecosystems that would be more appropriate here. Cheers, Justinleif 03:22, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed that this conversation was already occurring, above, under a different heading. I support the merge proposal, and think that they should be made into a single article, or else the methods for measuring PP could be put in a separate more technical article (Jeeb's suggestion 1). I think the other divisions would be artificial, confusing, and might prevent people from encountering all the information. This conversation seems to have gone cold. Is there still any interest in the merging?Justinleif 02:15, 14 March 2007 (UTC)