Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life

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WikiProject Tree of Life

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A few Wikipedians have come together to make some suggestions about how we might organize data in these articles. These are only suggestions, things to give you focus and to get you going, and you shouldn't feel obligated in the least to follow them. But if you don't know what to write or where to begin, following the below guidelines may be helpful. Mainly, we just want you to write articles! For updates on Tree of Life and its subprojects, there is a monthly newletter published here to which you can subscribe.

Scope and related projects[edit]

This WikiProject is both a daughter project of WikiProject Biology and a meta-project in its own right. WikiProject Tree of Life aims primarily to represent the taxonomy and relationships of living organisms, as well as their extinct relatives, in a tree structure. Since there are millions of species, not all will be included, but we aim to handle as many as information, time, and interest permit. However, as a meta-project, Tree of Life directly includes only articles which have meaning across taxa or which pertain to taxonomy and systematics in general, or which do not fall under one of our daughter WikiProjects. A full directory of daughter WikiProjects has been listed below in the form of a cladogram. To see a directory of our sister WikiProjects under WikiProject Biology, see this link.

To see activity levels and active editors for these projects, use the Wikiproject Directory tool and find the project in question for further information. Some projects may not be listed. Current labels are based solely on template tags at the top of WikiProject pages and do not represent an in-depth assessment of the activity level of any project by WikiProject Tree of Life.

Outer[edit]

Inner[edit]

Related WikiProjects[edit]

Article titles[edit]

In cases where there is a formal common name (e.g. for birds), or when common names are well known and reasonably unique (e.g. "Cuvier's dwarf caiman"), they should be used for article titles. In all other cases, scientific names should be used.

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (flora) for article titles for plants and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna) for article titles for animals.

Note the following guidelines in using scientific names:

  • Names of genera are always italicized and capitalized, e.g. Homo, Rosa, Saccharomyces.
  • Species epithets are always italicized and preceded by the name of the genus, either in full or abbreviated (e.g. Homo sapiens or H. sapiens; never just sapiens), as an epithet may also be used for a different species in another genus. They are never capitalized.
  • Names of higher taxa are capitalized but not italicized, e.g. Hominidae, Mammalia, Animalia.
  • Common (vernacular) names are not capitalised (except for proper names that are part of them). See Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Animals, plants, and other organisms.

For a monotypic taxon (one that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon), a single article should cover both taxa (unless the higher-ranked one has had multiple circumscriptions, and an article is written to cover them all). If there is no common name, the article should generally go under the scientific name that is most often used when discussing the two taxa, or under the scientific name of lowest rank if there is no clear preference. However, for a monotypic genus (one that contains a single species), the genus name should be used, as it is included in the binomial nomenclature, and the genus title is more concise than the binomial. For instance, the order Amphionidacea, which has the single species Amphionides reynaudii, is discussed at Amphionides. If the name of a monotypic genus is shared with another topic, it is usually more appropriate to use a binomial as a natural disambiguation, rather than using a parenthetical disambiguating term for the genus. E.g., Alberta magna is a more natural search term than Alberta (plant).

Not all species need have separate articles. The simplest (and probably best) rule is to have no rule: if you have the time and energy to write up some particularly obscure subspecies that most people have never even heard of, go for it! As a general guideline, though, it's best to combine separate species into a single entry whenever it seems likely that there won't be enough text to make more than a short, unsatisfying stub otherwise. If the entry grows large enough to deserve splitting, that can always be done later.

A useful heuristic is to create articles in a "downwards" order, that is, family articles first, then genus, then species. If you find that information is getting thin, or the family/genus is small, leave the species information in the family or genus article. Don't try to force it down any further.

Taxon article templates[edit]

Articles about taxa, such as families, genera, or species, typically contain some or all of these sections:

  • (Physical) Description
  • Taxonomy
  • Distribution and habitat
  • Ecology and behavior
  • Conservation
  • Uses
  • Culture

See the general taxon template and descendant project pages, such as the WikiProject Plants taxon template, for more detail specific to different groups.

Taxoboxes Guide[edit]

Example taxobox
Cetaceans
Temporal range: 53.5–0 Ma Early Eocene – Present
Clockwise from top: sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus), Amazon river dolphin (Inia geoffrensis), Blainville's beaked whale (Mesoplodon densirostris), southern right whale (Eubalaena australis), narwhal (Monodon monoceros), humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae), killer whale (Orcinus orca), gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) and harbor porpoise (Phocoena phocoena).
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Clade: Cetaceamorpha
Infraorder: Cetacea
Brisson, 1762
Parvorders

(see text for families)

Diversity
Around 88 species

Detailed taxonomic information, including notes on how taxa are defined and how they vary between different systems, belongs in the article proper. Where possible, however, a standard table will be provided to allow easier navigation between related groups and quick identification of what sort of organisms are being discussed. These are called taxoboxes. A typical taxobox is shown at right (it belongs on the top right of the page Cetacea).

There are three main sections to the taxobox:

  • A header showing the name of the group, sometimes followed by a representative image.
  • A table showing the placement of the group in a typical classification system.
  • A footer, whose content varies, showing the binomial name or a species, or a list of subgroups for higher taxa.

Some items that are often included, but are not (necessarily) standardized, include:

Position: The taxobox generally belongs at the top right corner of the article, unless it has been decided otherwise on the relevant talk page - for instance, if the article is not primarily about the biological group.

For cultivars — cultivated varieties of plants — don't use a taxobox; instead use a cultivar infobox ({{Infobox cultivar}}) as described at Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Cultivar infobox.

For breeds of animals, don't use a taxobox; instead use the appropriate breed template; see for example Wikipedia:WikiProject Dogs/Dog breeds task force and Wikipedia:WikiProject Equine/Horse breeds.

Talkpages[edit]

Tag talkpages with: {{WikiProject Tree of Life|class=|importance=}}

Categories[edit]

Major groups should be given their own categories. When possible, these should use the common name in the plural, except for plants, where WikiProject Plants uses scientific names by default (see WP:NCFLORA). In general, only articles about major subgroups should be added, and more specific articles should be included in subcategories. However, when there are only a few articles about members of the group, they can all go directly into the main category. Use your judgement on when to split, aiming for an approximate category size of 10-50 articles.

Note that in addition to taxa, categories may also contain informal subgroups. For instance Category:Primates may include an article or subcategory for monkeys, although they are not treated as a formal group. They may also include some other articles that pertain specifically to members of the group, although they are not about them.

Categories for articles about the biota[1] of a region should be based on the common grouping of that region used by zoological, botanical, mycological etc. publications. For example, if it is common to separate a region based on political boundaries (as in parts of Europe), categories should be separated by countries. If it is common to separate regions based on geographic features (such as New Guinea), categories should be separated by geographic region.

References[edit]

  1. ^ Biota are the total collection of organisms of a geographic region or a time period. See: Biota (ecology)

WikiProject Tree of Life[edit]

Project standards
Shortcuts: WP:TOL
WP:Tree of life
WP:Tree of Life
WP:TREE
WP:TREEOFLIFE
WP:ToL
Redirects: WP:Taxoboxes and beyond
WP:Wikiproject Taxonomy
WP:WikiProject Taxonomy
WP:Wikiproject species
WP:WikiProject Taxonomic
WP:TREE OF LIFE
Different Spellings: WP:WikiProject Tree of life
WP:Wikiproject Tree of Life
Section Shortcuts:
Section Redirects: WP:Taxobox
Project template: {{WikiProject Tree of Life}}
Member userbox: {{User WP Tree}}
Barnstar: {{Tree of Life Barnstar}}
Resources

Main Page - Discussion
Left panel - Discussion(redirect)
Right panel - Discussion
Alternate Main page - Discussion

Tab header - Discussion(redirect)
Assessment - Discussion
Recognized content - Discussion
Popular pages - Discussion
Cultivar Template - Discussion
Taxon Template - Discussion
Resources - Discussion

Newsletter - Discussion
Participants - Discussion

Contest - Discussion
Template union proposal - Discussion
Nono64 _ User page? - Discussion
Marsupial poll - Discussion
...

To Do

To do list
Open tasks
Cladogram requests - Discussion
Not in WikiProject TOL:
Requested Articles - Discussion
Animal image requests - Discussion

Task Force

Taxobox task force - Discussion

in Sister projects
WikidataWikiProject Taxonomy - Wikidata
Commons WikiProject Tree of Life - Commons
Wikispecies Taxonomy - Wikispecies
Tree of Life articles Trophy Case
Cladistics 4 May 2004
Human Unknown Date
Amphibian 25 April 2015
Archaea 10 January 2011
Introduction to evolution Unknown Date
Virus 5 October 2009
Bacteria 20 January 2007
27 April 2023
Bat 21 September 2020
Bird 4 May 2010
Bivalvia 3 November 2014
Wells and Wellington affair 18 March 2021
Dinosaur 1 January 2006
Ediacaran biota 13 June 2012
Evolution 18 March 2005
Fungus 17 November 2009
Primate 6 July 2011
Rodent 22 May 2015
Turtle 23 May 2022
... List of all recognized content ...

Taxonomic articles by quality log[edit]

March 26, 2024[edit]

Removed[edit]

March 25, 2024[edit]

Assessed[edit]

March 24, 2024[edit]

Assessed[edit]

March 23, 2024[edit]

Reassessed[edit]

  • Fish (talk) reassessed. Quality rating changed from B-Class to GA-Class. (rev · t)

Assessed[edit]

  • Foliaceus (talk) assessed. Quality assessed as List-Class. (rev · t) Importance assessed as Low-Class. (rev · t)

Removed[edit]

Userboxes[edit]

The following userboxes are available to add to your user page:

Sample articles[edit]

A number of articles under this WikiProject and its descendants have been recognized for their excellence by the Wikipedia community as featured articles or featured lists, and may serve as good models. The articles are sorted by WikiProject:

Article alerts[edit]

Today's featured articles

Today's featured article requests

Did you know

(13 more...)

Proposed deletions

Redirects for discussion

Featured article candidates

Good article nominees

(6 more...)

Good topic candidates

Peer reviews

Requested moves

Articles to be merged

(23 more...)

Articles to be split

(3 more...)

Articles for creation

To do[edit]

New articles[edit]

To browse Tree of Life subjects that require articles, see the Tree of Life list of requested articles. If adding to the list of requests, make sure to include scientific names, as it will make it easier for others to track down information. One-sentence stubs are discouraged: try to create a worthwhile start class article, with a taxobox, and sources properly cited. When adding weblinks, look for standard references first, such as the IUCN and its sub-commissions.

Specific request lists also include:

  • Missing encyclopedic articles about animals.
  • Missing encyclopedic articles about plants
  • Requested articles about plants (botany)
  • Fact-check new biology articles nominated for "Did you know ...?" here. The link is to all nominated articles, but binomial species names are easy to pick out. Successful candidates will be linked to from our Main Page, so let's make them look good!

Cleanup[edit]

Please add {{missing-taxobox}} to the talk page of articles that need taxonomic information.

Articles needing taxoboxes

Articles needing short descriptions

Articles needing attention[edit]

Articles needing attention

Assessment[edit]

Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Assessment

Contest[edit]

If you have significantly improved an article recently, consider participating in the Tree of Life Contest, a monthly rolling contest to motivate editors to improve articles related to any aspect of the Tree of Life.

Popular pages[edit]

Popular pages, a bot-generated list of pageviews, useful for focused cleanup of frequently viewed articles.

Quality operations[edit]

Quality operations, a bot-generated detail activity log.