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:

[edit] Introduction

  • The name of the ecoregion.
  • The biome it is contained within.
  • The country or countries it covers.

[edit] Setting

  • physical area of the ecoregion, in square kilometers and square miles.
  • Other ecoregions that it borders.
  • The ecozone and bioregion it is contained within.
  • Major geological/physiographic features of the ecoregion.
  • Soils.
  • The rivers that flow through it, and the watersheds it lies within, including freshwater ecoregions that it overlaps.
  • Any oceans or seas that it borders.
  • Its current best-known borders, in terms of the meta:spacetime DTD
  • Alternative names for the ecoregion, including names in local languages, other biogeographic naming schemes.

[edit] Climate

  • Climate type (i.e. hyperarid, arid, semi-arid, semi-humid, humid; tropical, subtropical, temperate, boreal, arctic/antarctic; maritime, continental).
  • Average annual rainfall, and distribution of rainfall throughout the year.
  • important weather systems (i.e. monsoons, El Niño) that influence the climate.

[edit] Flora

  • An account of major plant communities or habitat types, including their structure and predominant or characteristic species.
  • The total number of plant species (by phylum, if known), and the number and percentage of endemic plant species.
  • The floristic region or regions it is a part of.
  • The origins of the flora, and the floral affiliations with and distinctions from with neighboring ecoregions.

[edit] Fauna

  • An account of native animals organized from top predator down through lesser predators, then herbivore/prey animals and plants they feed on.
  • The total number of animal species (by phylum/class, if known), and the number and percentage of endemic animal species.
  • The zoogeographic region or regions it is a part of.
  • The origins of the fauna, and the faunal affiliations with and distinctions from with neighboring ecoregions.

[edit] Human use

  • An account of the history of human settlement in the ecoregion.
  • The current cultures and languages of the ecoregion.
  • The resource resources of the ecoregion: agriculture, fishing, timber, mining, industry.
  • Major cities in the ecoregion.

[edit] Conservation and threats

  • The ecological challenges facing the region, both local and global, including:
    • resource extraction, including hunting, fishing, logging, gathering.
    • deforestation, soil degradation, and desertification.
  • An account of 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).
  • Whether the region is part of the Global 200 or a biodiversity hotspot.

[edit] References

  • a list of article references.

[edit] External links

  • link to the WWF scientific report, plus any other relevant links.

[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.
  • Hesperian - working on IBRA regions.
  • Miguel.v will work on ecoregion articles as I look them up and find them lacking.

[edit] Templates

You can add the {{WP Ecoregions}} template to the top of the talk page of any article which would fall under this project. The template looks like this:

WikiProject Ecoregions is part of WikiProject Ecoregions, a project to improve all ecoregion-related articles. If you would like to help improve this and other ecoregion-related articles, please the project page. All interested editors are welcome.


[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

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../w/i/k/Wikipedia%7EWikiProject_Ecoregions_648b.html"
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