Talk:Marine life

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Vertebrate section[edit]

I'm going to work on the Vertebrate section, but I just have to ask what's up with that paragraph on icthyosaurs and the passage, "The biologist Stephen Jay Gould said the ichthyosaur was his favourite example of convergent evolution"? User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk 03:01, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent and welcome. So far I've made a first pass at the article. In an overview like this there cannot be too much emphasis on any one area. I suppose the challenge is to try and capture key points in the perspective of the whole field, and at the same time keep a measure of topical interest. Vertebrates are overrepresented in current literature, so I have tried in this article to establish a fairer balance for marine invertebrates. I'm well aware the vertebrate section is a bit neglected, but I'm not yet sure how it can be expanded in a balanced way. The article as a whole is already getting a bit large. The passage on Gould simply reflects what he considered important himself... the return to the sea of some life forms and the way they re-established similar adaptations. Do you have a problem with his view? --Epipelagic (talk) 05:14, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Is Gould noteworthy on such a broad topic as this? Is it important to note that his favourite example of convergent evolution is the icthyosaur? Maybe on the icthyosaur article, but here it just seems drawn out. User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk 14:36, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well it's a compact and interesting way of drawing attention to the development in land animals of limbs from fins, followed by remarkable readaptions back to fin-like structures as some land animals returned to the sea. As one of the most prominent and wide ranging evolutionary biologists of the time, I would have thought Gould was particularly equipped to indicate that. Is your problem with Gould or with the view he expresses? --Epipelagic (talk) 21:31, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Gould doesn't seem noteworthy. It could be changed to something along the lines of, "Icthyosaurs display convergent evolution in that they..." but you don't have to mention Gould or that his favourite example is the Icthyosaur. User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk 23:41, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Your statement that "Gould doesn't seem noteworthy" seems... odd. Here are some Google Scholar results which indicate the opposite. The fact that Gould selects this particular example for highlighting out of all the examples he might have picked makes it notable and interesting in my mind. --Epipelagic (talk) 01:17, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

overview[edit]

      The article has a very neutral view with well researched citations. I would like to see more in the Land Interactions section such as turtle nesting, habitats for inland organisms, or shore pollutants instead of links. Maybe even how erosion effects estuaries and coral reefs.Lpfalz (talk) 13:07, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Too long, too detailed in places where sub-articles exist[edit]

This article looks very impressive on first sight but I see some flaws with it. It's too long and detailed, in particular when it repeats too much content that is in sub-articles. This can be shortened and the readers referred to the sub-articles. The readable prose is 86 kB which means it is very long (see here for guidance). Looking at the table of contents, I also see that the structure is weak for the bottom quarter of the article where there are a bunch of Level-1 headings but no sub-headings anymore. I am putting it on my to-do list to work on this article but I would be very happy if someone else would like to work on it as well, particularly people who have edited this article before. My interest is from the side of SDG 14 for this article and I work on a project that is explained here (looking for collaborators). EMsmile (talk) 12:28, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the article itself is overlong, which could be somewhat remedied by the judicious shortening of summaries from other articles. As the main contributor I've been thinking about how to shorten the article for some time. It needs a bit of thought, as the summaries still need to leave a clear impression of just what is notable about each species group. I'm not sure how you would structure the grabbag of disparate issues towards the end. — Epipelagic (talk) 01:35, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

HiEpipelagic, I'd be happy to work with you on this. I think I am quite good at carefully shortening sections, each time deciding if this particular content needs to be in an overview article or not. I find it's easier to shorten someone else's content than content I have written myself. :-) And I agree with you about the "grabbag" of issues towards the end. Many articles seem to have that. We could think about grouping issues under appropriate Level-1 headings, or moving some to sub-articles. If/when I do any shortening, I will save each time in between so you can interject if needed. - Have you been following the discussion at sea? A shortening exercise is also needed there, plus this difficult ongoing discussion which content should be at sea and which at ocean. You might be in a good position to review/shorten the section about "marine life" / marine biology that is currently in both those articles? EMsmile (talk) 23:33, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Marine biology?[edit]

I agree with you, User:Epipelagic that you have moved some text blocks to marine biology. however, I think we should have a sentence somewhere that explains the relationship between marine life and marine biology. Currently, the article no longer mentions "marine biology" anywhere. The same goes in the other direction, although I see that at marine biology the linkage with marine life is explained in the first sentence: "Marine biology is the scientific study of marine life, organisms in the sea. " Interestingly, that article has quite a long section on marine life... So I think the article about marine life ought to have at least one sentence about marine biology. For the layperson (like me), the initial thought might be: isn't marine biology and marine life the same thing? So it would be good to have that clearly spelled out (briefly) in both articles. EMsmile (talk) 13:58, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I appended a sentence to the lead – does that do it? I think it is already somewhat spelt out in marine biology, in the section on biological oceanography and at the start of the section on marine life. — Epipelagic (talk) 22:29, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have changed the sentence a bit further.EMsmile (talk) 23:52, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Two sections called "Notes"[edit]

The article currently has two sections called "Notes". This should be merged into one section or perhaps be changed over into normal text plus references? EMsmile (talk) 04:34, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've merged them into one, although they use different formatting/numbering so it doesn't look great. EMsmile (talk) 22:36, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

About the image used in the lead[edit]

I think it would be better to decide on just one image for the lead, or to have an image collage (like we have at marine biology now). Currently there are two images in the lead. The first one is the same one used for large marine ecosystem and its caption does not put it into context for marine life. The second one shows the image of an orca (which I find not necessarily ideal) but does a better job with its caption to explain diversity. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I don't think it's good to have the same lead image for two articles, i.e. the same for marine life and for large marine ecosystem. EMsmile (talk) 13:37, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Image use[edit]

There are a lot of images in this article, most of which do not seem to add anything and only serve as detriment to the actual body of the article. Maybe it would be wise to discuss a new approach so that the article can be more streamlined going forward. The Morrison Man (talk) 16:14, 26 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I just went through the page and found the images very informative and descriptive to the text. With a topic such as this, images play a major role, if not the major role. I think the tag should be removed and the images left alone to inform readers of the topic flow. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:48, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

While images can certainly add to the text, in this case they make the article overly cluttered. We could cut the image down by half and it would probably still look more like an image gallery than a proper article. The Morrison Man (talk) 12:56, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]