User:Katherine hayes/sandbox

Article outline: Native American use of fire

For my article assignment, I want to work on the existing article on the native american use of fire. The existing article is rather thorough, drawing heavily from the works of Stephen Pine and Henry Lewis. I want to propose adding a more geographic focus: as written, the article addresses native americans as one holistic group, who all have 12 main reasons or motivations for burning. Native americans as a group, however, are far more diverse than to all have the same 12 burning practices, etc. I would like to add a section addressing the burning practices of specific regions: how did the burning practice of tribes in the Northeast differ from those in the Pacific Northwest? etc. I've been debating the best categorical system to use: would a summary by physical region or by cultural group be the best way to present specific information? As of now, I'm planning on dividing by cultural regions, as defined prior to European colonization: Arctic, California, Great Basin, Northeast, Northwest coast, Great Plains, Plateau, Southwest, Southeast, Subarctic (there's an excellent map of these culture groups made by National Geographic, and others are available elsewhere online).

The section as I currently imagine it would be organized in the following outline:

Cultural and Regional Burning Practices:

- Introduction paragraph explaining why distinguishing between cultural groups is important (?).

- Section for each of the above 10 cultural groups: each section might have tribe-specific examples, climate descriptions important to fire triangle conditions, etc.

Add to an article assignment: the 2003 Canoe Fire

I'm interested in adding a section to the existing article on Humboldt Redwoods State Park. The 2003 canoe fire which burned about 13 thousand acres of the park is significant for redwood ecologists: it's one of the first significant fires to burn old growth redwood since fire suppression oriented management and policy began in the 1930s. The fire has since been used extensively as a case study for how fire behaves in both old growth and second growth redwood forest. The 2007 US Service report (pdf link below) would be a good source for this section.

https://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/documents/psw_gtr194/psw_gtr194_33.pdf http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_details_info?incident_id=70

Article Critique:

For my critique, I examined the soil carbon article on wikipedia. The article itself is in relatively good shape it describes both inorganic and organic carbon, particularly through their roles in the global carbon cycle. There's a small section on managing soil carbon, and some on the data available for soil carbon in Europe. I believe there are a few sections that would be helpful to add: the basics of measuring and quantifying soil carbon, expanding the soil inorganic carbon section to match the organic section, and a basic overview of the ways in which human activities alter both soil carbon storage and accumulation. Adding the basics of how to quantify soil carbon would add to the section on soil carbon management as well as the bit on soil carbon monitoring. I also think the article has a bit of a European focus - there's a section for "Data available" for Europe, but no other continent/region. I think a data available section would make sense for different biotypes, rather than political boundaries: ie, trends in soil carbon for boreal forests vs rainforests vs deserts.

Draft:

I. Introduction -

• Definition of Paleoecology: Paleoecology (also spelt palaeoecology) is the study of interactions between organisms and/or interactions between organisms and their environments across geologic timescales. As a discipline, paleoecology interacts with, depends on and informs a variety of fields including paleontology, ecology, climatology and biology.
• History of Paleoecology: Paleoecology emerged out of the field of paleontology in the 1950’s, though paleontologists have conducted paleoecological studies since the creation of paleontology in the 1700s and 1800s. Combining the investigative approach of searching for fossils with the theoretical approach of Darwin and Von Humboldt, paleoecology began as paleontologists began examining both the ancient organisms they discovered and their environments. Visual depictions of past marine and terrestrial communities has been considered an early form of paleoecology.
• Overview of Paleoecological approaches:
  • Classical paleoecology - Classic paleoecology uses data from fossils and subfossils to reconstruct the ecosystems of the past. It involves the study of fossil organisms and their associated remains (such as shells, teeth, pollen, and seeds), which can help in the interpretation of their life cycle, living interactions, natural environment, communities, and manner of death and burial. Such interpretations aid the reconstruction of past environments (paleoenvironments). Classical paleoecology is a primarily reductionist approach: classical paleoecologist conduct detailed analysis of relatively small groups of organisms within shorter geologic timeframes.
  • Evolutionary paleoecology - Evolutionary paleoecology uses data from fossils and other evidence to examine how organisms and their environments change throughout time. Evolutionary paleoecologists take the holistic approach of looking at both organism and environmental change, accounting for physical and chemical changes in the atmosphere, lithosphere and hydrosphere across time. By studying patterns of evolution and extinction in the context of environmental change, evolutionary paleoecologists are able to examine concepts of vulnerability and resilience in species and environments.
  • Community Paleoecology - Community paleoecology uses statistical analysis to examine the composition and distribution of groups of plants or animals. By quantifying how plants or animals are associated, community paleoecologists are able to investigate the structures of ancient communities of organisms. Advances in technology have helped propel the field, through the use of physical models and computer-based analysis.

II. Major Principles -

• Assumptions - While the functions and relationships of fossil organisms may not be observed directly (as in ecology), scientists can describe and analyze both individuals and communities over time. To do so, paleoecologists make the following assumptions:
  • All organisms are adapted and restricted to a particular environment, and are usually adapted to a particular lifestyle.
  • Essentially all organisms depend on another organism, whether directly or indirectly.
  • The fossil or physical records are inherently incomplete - the geologic record is selective and some environments are more likely to be preserved than others.
  • Methodological uniformitarianism: Uniformitarianism, simply put, is the concept that processes that took place in the geologic past are the same as the ones that are observed taking place today. In paleoecology, uniformitarianism is used as a methodology: paleoecologists make inferences about ancient organisms and environments based on the analogies they find in the present.

III. Methods -

Type of Evidence	Inference	Timescale	Analysis
Fossils	Physical evidence of the presence of an organism. Fossils rarely preserve organisms in life positions, but based on the assumptions mentioned earlier, we can make certain inferences regarding factors like organism lifestyle, location, associations, behavior, etc.	Fossils are found across all timescales but are often more available or better preserved in mesozoic or cenozic timescales.	Taphonomy
Bioturbation
Microbial stuctures
Reefs, shell bottoms ..
Pelagic ecosystems
Pollen

V. Applications of Paleoecology -

• Conservation, Management, Restoration: paleoecological research is often conducted in order to

Peer review

Good start! The outline is logically structured: starting with principles, moving on to methods, and then speculating about the future. You might want to add material beyond what's included in the cited encyclopedia entry to avoid problems of close paraphrasing. David Bottjer has a great (and relatively short) introductory text that includes references to important specific papers that have been published, and it also includes figures that could be useful for illustration. There are also several texts that cover philosophical issues in paleontology that could benefit your section about that topic. It would also be helpful to include some references to contemporary research, such as our Vertebrate Paleontology Lab's output or the work that Rebecca Terry has been doing at OSU. Dinosaurphilosophy (talk) 00:47, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Peer review #2

<nowiki>I agree with Dinosaurphilosophy; this is a grat start and definitely will be an improvement over the current article. I like that you are going to have a section dedicated to the timescales. I think I am going to also like the philosophy section, but am very curiuos about what you mean/are going to write for "simplicity." It is going to be really helpful to have separate sections for the methods and the applications, too (if I'm interpreting your outline correctly). Having a future directions section is an interesting idea; I can't think of many Wikipedia articles that do that, but I like the idea of including it! Maybe it could incorporate ongoing research too? (So something like current research/future directions?) SkyBlueWater (talk) 05:20, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Feedback

I can't find your input on "add to an article" from your sandbox or the article's talk page. Can you please point me to that. thanks!Jfaay (talk) 05:48, 30 October 2017 (UTC)