Talk:Ecological indicator

message: I suggest a more blunt definition with applications dealt with in later paragraphs.  
:Ecological indicators are narrow, quantitative metrics which serve as proxies for change in ecological systems too complex to apprehend more broadly.  
I tried to phrase the the applications and only managed some fragments.  
I think assess should appear as a verb before communicate.  
:assess human impact on ecological systems 
I would spell out in more detail the list of stakeholders:  
:disparite stakeholders such as biologists, ecologists, property owners, the local community, the general public, and governmental policy makers 
It would be safer to avoid that quagmire in sentence #2 by stating something from the historical / economic perspective.  
: indicators have always been used by societies living close to the land [you could find zillions of examples of this] 
: while human societies have impacted or destroyed ecological systems dating back to [quote something from Diamond] the range and scope of human activities on ecological systems has greatly expanded since the beginning of industrialism [combustion of coal] and more recently with the advent of petrochemical industrism in the first half of the 20'th century, further intensified by [a rapid increase in world population] 
: while briefly [I'm thinking 30 years, circa 1940-1970] the abundance of nature was considered by many as inexhaustible, it is now recognized that [nature is a common good that must be somehow managed]   
: the field has lately been propelled in a more quantitative direction by an increased recognition of the environment as a shared good 
At this point the stage is now set to get into stakeholders, complexity of ecosystems, communication and expertise gaps, the inexact science of complex systems, etc.  
Ideally that arc would be highly compressed into three or four sentences before the TOC and then after the TOC the stakeholder/political narrative greatly expanded, leading into subsections dealing with increasingly scientific and technical concerns (such as policy formulation).  
I like the quote before the TOC.   To use that quote before the TOC it needs to be said by somebody: According to Dr Deepdoodoo, from High And Mighty Institution, "it is difficult and often impossible ..."  
I might elevate that to second sentence after my proposed blunt definition: 
:Ecological indicators are narrow, quantitative metrics which serve as proxies for change in ecological systems too complex to apprehend more broadly.  
Followed perhaps by:  
:Ecological Indicators have become more prevalent/prominent in the late 20'th century as societies increasingly recognized the environment as a shared good [to serve the social need to come to consensus on how these complex resources can be best managed].  
That would be a sufficient third sentence finishing the introductory paragraph before the TOC.  
Even better for an encyc. treatment would be to cite the date that the first university offered an explicit program in this discipline. 
:Ecological indicators became a serious academic concern when the University of Forethought established the first [academic program] in 1978 [to reflect] society's increasing awareness of the environment as a shared good.  
It would be helpful to identify some specific point in time when implicit concern and academic dialog tipped into becoming an explicit area of specialization and study.  
That boils the opening paragraph down into: 
# narrow quantitative proxy 
# austere quote about damnable organic complexities 
# datestamped establishment of ecind as a formal academic tradition reflecting increased public awareness of the environment as a shared good  
Then after the TOC you can sail off into the intractible human dimension which overlays the intractible biological dimension.  
Good first cut.  MaxEnt 06:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Introductory Paragraph

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message: We should combine this with bioindicator. TheBartgry (talk) 12:50, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bioindicator 

message: — Assignment last updated by Warmedforbs (talk) 01:24, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2024