Talk:Theoretical ecology

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A fact from Theoretical ecology appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 13 May 2011 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that mathematical models developed in theoretical ecology show that complex food webs (pictured) tend to be unstable?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2011/May.

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Introduction figure and caption

Is the caption of the introductory figure not a bit missleading?

   "Mathematical models developed in theoretical ecology predict complex food webs are less stable than simple webs.[1]:75–77[2]:64"

IMO it is to bold and general a statement. Some rather old and *simplified* models of theoretical ecology predict foodwebs with more species to be less stable. In particular, the section on #Food Webs actually states that this is subject to debate and does not agree with a lot of the empirical data. The assumption of May's original paper are very restrictive in particular the unstructured randomly drawn connectivity matrix. In many ways Mays work is a bit like the Hardy-Weinberg laws that *on purpose* analyse an unrealistic population to come up with a "null hypothesis" that reality can be compared with. Mays statement IMO is NOT about real foodwebs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ttxtea (talk • contribs) 14:52, 29 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Metaphysics"?

How does metaphysics fit into a page on theoretical ecology? People tend to use the term 'ecology' loosely (for example, re-naming Home Economics as Human Ecology, but I question the appropriateness of this material here. Guettarda

Too much of the introduction reads like an academic play by play. I hope that this can be moved to the middle of the essay and that the introduction can be reserved basic, introductory material, relavent to those who are curious about what theoretical ecology is. --Ralfipedia

In addition, I think the reference to Schrödinger's What is Life? as "metaphysics" is misleading. Schrödinger was seeking to ground our understanding of life in physics, not some extra-scientific philosophy. WebDrake 14:02, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Be that as it may...

The article calls it metaphysics
Whatever you call it, how is it ecology? Guettarda 14:09, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

To deal with these issues in order:

On that particular point, the article is talking out of its arse. What is Life? is not metaphysics, as you can see from the article dedicated to it.
Your call. IMO What is Life? is theoretical biology, but ecology seems like too specific a term.

— WebDrake 14:21, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Theoretical biology

It seemed to me that theoretical biology was a wide enough field to merit its own category, so I created it and have added theoretical ecology to the list. :-) — WebDrake 14:13, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral theory centered

The article seems to be cetered around neutral theory of biogeography. It seems to me there are many other areas worth noting; Lotka-Volterra equations, Logistic (and Gompertz, and Watt) growth, Holling Functional responses, etc.. I would think these are on par as far as theoretical ecology goes. Thoughts? --Hansnesse 18:00, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Random selection of "Theoretical and mathematical ecologists"

The section listing "Theoretical and mathematical ecologists" appears very random and lacks references. Some names are extremely prominent in the field, while others are relativley young researchers currently working. Many are surely successful, but so are many others which are not listed. The list must be backed up by references and some sort of criteria for inclusion. Personally, I think that the list should be much more restrictive, especially when it comes to active researchers. Fileunderwater (talk) 19:19, 17 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What would be good criteria for deciding who to include? Perhaps something like those people who have authored books on theoretical or mathematical ecology? Alternatively the list of names could be removed altogether, or just the link to the mathematical ecologist category could be kept. Ecoevo (talk) 23:30, 2 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would rather remove it altogether, since it invites for self-inclusions (there are several likely ones already), bias and cherry-picking. If people have written textbooks they can still show up in the reference list of the page. One possible restriction could be historically important dead theoretical ecologists, to provide a background for the field. However, this approach would be rather negative and it would not reflect current developments, and there is already a "History" section which can include this information. Fileunderwater (talk) 12:52, 15 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, I have now removed the list, since nobody has raised any objections. If it is to be included again, I think a clear set of criteria has to be defined at first. Fileunderwater (talk) 11:53, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, removing the list was a good idea. Thank you. Guettarda (talk) 12:45, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]