I agree this kind of conceptual fuzziness is a problem when trying to explain the sometimes very specific technical details of results to others. On the other hand, I think Ecology has always been willing to adopt terms from other areas, like in 19th c French when plant "sociétés" and "phytosociologie" were all the rage. Today, I can think of many terms that have the same problem to different degrees today: succession, niche, species, colony, tipping points ... then there is the particular challenge of "ecosystem" which went the other way !
Thanks for writing. Do you mean that "ecosystem" as a word has been co-opted by other realms, such as in the "funding ecosystem"? That's interesting....never thought about that.
yes - that's what I was thinking about :) In France they've even got a recycling program that goes by the name "ecosystem" (or rather "ecosystème"). Their web is here: pages: https://decouvrir.ecosystem.eco/qui-sommes-nous
Ok. I wonder if there is any potential for negative effects on the understanding of the term ecosystem in the context of ecology from this more widespread use of the term in other contexts....
Certainly there is a risk when a specific scientific term has a rather different meaning than in the Queen's English. IMO, the current Zeitgeist in microbial ecology re community (and microbiome) is that positive interactions predominate [with little data] whereas my mindset is that microbes are extreme predatory capitalists [also with little data].
I'm OK with abolishing functional redundancy (although good luck with that) -- but it struck me that this is also a case of nuance between American and British English. We Americans don't impute the connotation of 'no longer employed' that the Brits do. If one goes to the engineering literature, there is the idea of redundant as a back-up system.
Thanks for writing. With the microbiome perhaps there is a more balanced view of positive and negative interactions (even though it will depend to whom you're talking). But I think the problem still remains.
As for functional redundancy, we wrote the paper(s) on it, and let's see how the term fares, hopefully it goes away. It's not about "not employed", but about not needed that's the issue there, and I think that meaning is present in all kinds of versions of English. It's clear that it looks different in the engineering literature, but that is not what the public knows.
I agree this kind of conceptual fuzziness is a problem when trying to explain the sometimes very specific technical details of results to others. On the other hand, I think Ecology has always been willing to adopt terms from other areas, like in 19th c French when plant "sociétés" and "phytosociologie" were all the rage. Today, I can think of many terms that have the same problem to different degrees today: succession, niche, species, colony, tipping points ... then there is the particular challenge of "ecosystem" which went the other way !
Thanks for writing. Do you mean that "ecosystem" as a word has been co-opted by other realms, such as in the "funding ecosystem"? That's interesting....never thought about that.
yes - that's what I was thinking about :) In France they've even got a recycling program that goes by the name "ecosystem" (or rather "ecosystème"). Their web is here: pages: https://decouvrir.ecosystem.eco/qui-sommes-nous
Ok. I wonder if there is any potential for negative effects on the understanding of the term ecosystem in the context of ecology from this more widespread use of the term in other contexts....
Certainly there is a risk when a specific scientific term has a rather different meaning than in the Queen's English. IMO, the current Zeitgeist in microbial ecology re community (and microbiome) is that positive interactions predominate [with little data] whereas my mindset is that microbes are extreme predatory capitalists [also with little data].
I'm OK with abolishing functional redundancy (although good luck with that) -- but it struck me that this is also a case of nuance between American and British English. We Americans don't impute the connotation of 'no longer employed' that the Brits do. If one goes to the engineering literature, there is the idea of redundant as a back-up system.
Thanks for writing. With the microbiome perhaps there is a more balanced view of positive and negative interactions (even though it will depend to whom you're talking). But I think the problem still remains.
As for functional redundancy, we wrote the paper(s) on it, and let's see how the term fares, hopefully it goes away. It's not about "not employed", but about not needed that's the issue there, and I think that meaning is present in all kinds of versions of English. It's clear that it looks different in the engineering literature, but that is not what the public knows.