Talk:Organisms at high altitude

Life in the clouds

Sources to look at:

• First Observations of Biological Particles in High-Altitude Clouds
• Biological Particles Trigger Ice Formation In High-Altitude Clouds

violet/riga (t) 13:24, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Assessment

This article has been assessed by the Chances of Puerile Vandalism WikiProject and has been rated "Certain". Yomangani^talk 13:36, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

This comment has been assessed by the Hilarity WikiProject and has been rated as "Low". violet/riga (t) 13:38, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Tickets for my one man show are still available. Yomangani^talk 13:59, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Physiology of High Altitude Adaptations in Animals

Excellent starting point for adaptations: http://www.bio.davidson.edu/Courses/anphys/1999/Dickens/Dickens.htm violet/riga _^[talk] 22:09, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Merge?

I propose that we merge High-altitude adaptation with Organisms at high altitude. Both articles are about the same topic (how organisms have adapted to high altitude), and both have good content. The articles complement each other: it would be an even better article if combined. —hike395 (talk) 14:25, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I think High-altitude adaptation the better title. Currently that article is only about animals; clearly a merged article on organisms in general could use that title, with (if need be) subsidiary articles on High-altitude adaptation in animals, High-altitude adaptation in humans, High-altitude adaptation in plants, etc. Given the modest length of the articles and their evident overlap of topic, the merge seems sensible. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:06, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I am open to suggestions for a better title for the merged article! High-altitude adaptation in animals would be acceptable to me. Alpine plants is approximately High-altitude adaptation in plants. —hike395 (talk) 15:23, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Later --- went ahead and created a redirect from High-altitude adaptation in plants to Alpine plant. —hike395 (talk) 15:33, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

All high-altitude plants are "alpine", are you sure? Even if that is true, I don't think plants are animals .... so the top-level article should just be High-altitude adaptation without the 'in animals' bit. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:36, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I misread your suggestion. I thought you wanted to merge to High-altitude adaptation in animals, because the article is only about animals. That made sense to me. I would just move the very short paragraph on moss from Organisms at high altitude to alpine plant. There really isn't any material on high-altitude plant adaptation in either of these articles.

I worry that any high-altitude adaptation article may be too broad -- animals and plants adapt in very different ways. There's also the problem that the topic of High-altitude adaptation isn't very clear -- adaptation of biological organisms? engineering artifacts? —hike395 (talk) 15:52, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

On the question of whether 'adaptation' can be used by a biology article, no need to worry. If engineering one day needs a similar topic, it'll find a suitable title even if that has ...(engineering) in it. On the question of whether animals, plants and other organisms have any common adaptations, it's obviously interesting. Anti-freeze chemicals in blood and sap, perhaps. If we don't yet know, then it's too soon for the article. I'm not against doing the animals and plants separately for now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:55, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I would like to caution about the use of "adaptation" too eagerly. While there are tons of cool physiological and biomechanical adaptations to life at high altitude, we shouldn't assume that just because an organism is *present* at high altitudes it must possess adaptations to such environments. For instance, the organism could already have a highly-efficient respiratory systems for other reasons (e.g. the flow-through lungs of birds to power flight) which allow it to expand into higher altitudes than other taxa, without that trait being specifically adapted for high-altitude life (either in its origin or as an exaptation). Alternatively, animals can simply acclimatize (as humans do) without adaptation, particularly if individuals only spend a portion of their time at high altitude, or if the bulk of the population is at low altitude and has opposing selection pressures. My suggestion would be to make Organisms at high altitude the primary, but then talk about both adaptations AND acclimatizion within it. I view it a bit like swimming - there are tons of cool adaptations to swimming, but plenty of animals with none of those are still capable of it. HCA (talk) 18:10, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

It's not our job to invent, but to report on what scientists have written in RS about adaptation, or any other topic. High-altitude adaptation is a priori a perfectly valid topic, if good sources exist. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:32, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I think you missed my point. Presence at high altitude does not mean adaptation to high altitude (see above). If you want to focus on adaptations, fine, but be aware that the current Organisms at high altitude includes several species who are merely present, without good sources showing they have adaptations. Remember, actually demonstrating a trait is an adaptation is quite difficult (see Gould & Lewontin's spandrels paper, as well as Arnold's form-function-fitness paper). IMHO, the article would best be named as is, with subsections for acclimatization, adaptation, and various taxa found in these habitats. HCA (talk) 18:59, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I see your point, HCA. I am happy with either Animals at high-altitude or High-altitude adaptation in animals. —hike395 (talk) 12:45, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

I agree with HCA (talk · contribs). I think it would be better if it is not merged. Ankit ☎ 19:41, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

I think both HCA and Chiswick Chap were in favor of the merge, just disagreeing about the name. —hike395 (talk) 01:30, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

This used to be about organisms at high altitude. Now those sections have been deleted, and its focused on animal adaptation? Fotaun (talk) 20:01, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

About name and page content

This was moved from Organisms at high altitude to Animals at high altitude, and then plant section was deleted. A page split may be a better choice. Fotaun (talk) 19:42, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

I think you meant well, but this article was slowly changed from an article about any organism at high altitude to one focused on animal adaptation, with many of the old content sections deleted. Per the old adage, Wikipedia is not paper and there is enough space here for both these topics. In retrospect it was really unnecessary to damage the original content in this way. Thanks Fotaun (talk) 20:14, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

@Fotaun: I see you reverted the merge at High-altitude adaptation without fully undoing the merge here. So, now we have a WP:CONTENTFORK, which goes against WP guidelines. I did not just delete the plant and space sections, but moved the material to Alpine plant and Animals in space, respectively. So, no damage has been done: no information has been lost. Now the redundancy is spread across multiple articles.

From above, I thought we had consensus to perform the merge. If @Chiswick Chap, HCA, and Plantdrew and others reaffirm that consensus, I will revert Fotaun's edits from today. Otherwise, we should completely unwind all of the merge and restore this page back to its October state. —hike395 (talk) 05:41, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

I am very happy to be supportive of a merge, but admit I am not certain whether we have a consensus for that. If we have a FORK, that's plainly wrong, however. Would be delighted to be helped towards clarity on the matter. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:47, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

The worst of the FORK is the overlap between High-altitude adaptation and Organisms at high altitude. I am going to revert Fotaun's reversion of my redirect at High-altitude adaptation, which will fix the biggest problem. We can continue to discuss the merge and what belongs in this article. —hike395 (talk) 14:02, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

There's clearly no room for a pair of articles on High-altitude adaptation and Organisms at high altitude, so I support that particular merge. If the current article is covering animals and plants at a general level, it would not be unreasonable for there to be separate subsidiary articles on HA animals, plants, fungi, etc, but only if there is sufficient material for more detailed articles on such topics. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:03, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Chiming in late, but I support the merge. Separate articles on animals, plants and fungi could be appropriate if there is sufficient material, but I don't see much of a conceptual distinction between organisms at high altitude and the adaptations that allow organisms to survive at high altitude. Plantdrew (talk) 23:48, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Organisms that belong at high altitude, and those that don't

On Fotaun's insistence that taking something into space and calling that "at high altitude", that bit of text has been reverted by other people in the past, and the consensus is that space simply doesn't belong here, it's just a bit of trivia. To see why, it has been well said that "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution", and this is a clear case in point. An animal or plant adapted to life on the mountain tops – sculpted by millions of years of evolution to survive and reproduce in such a harsh environment – that is a remarkable thing. A minibeast stuffed in a jar and carted into space may be good for the Guinness Book of Records, but has no place in a serious article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:09, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Right -- there are three issues with the recent edits:

1. Should high-altitude adaptation be merged into this article?
2. Do high-altitude plants belong in this article?
3. Do organisms in space belong in this article?

We should discuss the merge in the section, above. Let's talk abou organisms in space, here.

I agree with Chiswick Chap that organisms in space belong in their own existing article, Animals in space, precisely because no Earth organism lives permanently in space. —hike395 (talk) 14:02, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Indeed. Since with the merge, however, the article clearly covers the adaptation of organisms to high altitude, the space section is even more clearly misplaced from animals in space, and I'll delete that section here now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:05, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

This used to be about any organism at high altitude, which is why it had plants and even space content. It did include if the life was taken there as opposed to evolved there. I can see the whole focus of the article has changed now, but we can just make more articles to cover the different topics. No worries Fotaun (talk) 17:48, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

IMHO, we need to address two main topics, the latter of which has 3 sub-topics. The first is what the challenges are due to high altitude (cold, thin air, etc.). The second is how organisms cope with those changes, in three ways: immediate physiological changes (e.g. the heart rate and breathing of a human climber), acclimatization / phenotypic plasticity (e.g. a plant which will grow differently depending on what altitude it is at), and evolutionary adaptation (e.g. changes in hemoglobin between high and low altitude populations). It's crucial not to assume all instances of altitude differences are due to the latter one, especially since the former is well known and the middle has been demonstrated in several "common garden" style experiments. HCA (talk) 16:42, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

These are all clearly relevant. Add away. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:33, 10 January 2017 (UTC)