Talk:Parasitism

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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 06:07, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Adding examples to the ecology and parasitology section

I added three examples to this section, highlighting the importance of ecological parasitology. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zbellido (talk • contribs) 12:36, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

verb "is" in "a wide range of organisms is parasitic"

Under taxonomic range is currently the sentence "A wide range of organisms is parasitic, from animals, plants, and fungi to protozoans, bacteria, and viruses."

This sentence is extremely awkward and reads as incorrect to readers accustomed to UK English.

I made a very clearly annotated change to correct it to "a wide range of organisms are parasitic" and this has been changed back, with the author once again incorrectly claiming the verb should match "range" and not "organisms"

I would like to refer to the following from the plurals section of the manual of style, emphasis is mine:

Some collective nouns – such as team (and proper names of them), army, company, crowd, fleet, government, majority, mess, number, pack, and party – may refer either to a single entity or to the members that compose it. In British English, such words are sometimes treated as singular, but more often treated as plural, according to context.

Additionally, continued digging into the subject of notional agreement across both Englishes returns the following note from the Synesis page, emphasis mine again:

Although notional agreement is more commonly used in British English than in American English, some amount is natural in any variety of English. American style guides give advice, for example, on notional agreement for phrases such as a number of, a lot of, and a total of. The AMA Manual of Style says,[3] "The number is singular and a number of is plural"[3] (thus the number of mosquitoes is increasing but a number of brands of mosquito repellent are available) and "The same is true for the total and a total of"[3] (thus the total was growing but a total of 28 volunteers have submitted applications [not *has submitted]).

In the sentence in question:

• parasitism is a trait of each individual organism, prompting notional agreement in UK english
• the sentence is constructed as "A wide range", not "The wide range", prompting notional agreement in US English.

I would like this changed back to the more natural "A wide range of organisms are parasitic", but I don't particularly want to start an edit war with User:Chiswick_Chap ... any advice on how to resolve this? Can we perhaps reword this sentence entirely?

Kiirani (talk) 08:52, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

actually now that I think about it I think rewording this to avoid the whole issue is probably the best call so I've sent an edit changing "a wide range of organisms is parasitic" to "Parasitism is present in a wide range of organisms" Kiirani (talk) 08:59, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for discussing. I am a native speaker of British English, and would gently point out that grammatically "a range is .. " is certainly correct - we would hardly say "a range are", now. However, I feel your discomfort and will take a look at the sentence so we don't have to squabble.We have already spilt a lot of ink over one two-letter word. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:01, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree if the range were presented without the "organisms", "a range is" would be better, it's the presence of the plural "organisms" after it that makes this awkward.

I don't like how flowery my rewording is but I think even if I were to convince you that we should change it to "are", it's clear that someone would find that exactly as awkward as I find "is"

at the end of the day "this simple sentence seems broken when I read it" is the problem I want to avoid, me insisting that we change it so it just sounds broken to a different set of people isn't helpful :) Kiirani (talk) 09:09, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Just want to add that I really like your current version, it smooths out the comma discomfort that was also nagging at me in the second half, thanks! Kiirani (talk) 09:19, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Sorryyyyy

I accidentally deleted a bunch of stuff p 205.236.31.236 (talk) 19:18, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Parasite table

The table of Major Parasitic Animal Groups lists "mites" as a taxon, although they are not; this row should be split into Acariformes and Mesostigmata, two taxa which are not closely related to each other. It also states that parasitic mites are ectoparasites only, but there are multiple endoparasitic representatives of both Acariformes (e.g. Sarcoptidae; certain Tarsonemoidea) as well as Mesostigmata (e.g. Rhynonyssidae; Halarachnidae)--Harvestman-man (talk) 18:56, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

It would be desirable, but the data are cited to Poulin, and he used the grouping, so there's no way to split it safely. For the longer term we should find a similar table from another authority (or perhaps he'll update the table somewhere). Meanwhile I guess we can risk ticking the Endo box. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:30, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Science

Write a short note on parasites in the space below — Preceding unsigned comment added by 223.180.181.151 (talk) 11:00, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Possible incorrect information under Hyperparasitism

The source cited for the statement 'in oak gall systems, there can be up to five levels of parasitism' does not appear to support this claim. The longest chain of hyperparasitism depicted in the source is in the diagram on page 240, and has four levels (Biorhiza, Olynx, Torymus, and then several possible fourth levels). BlueWyrm (talk) 00:35, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

If the source gives 4 levels, then change the text to four instead of five. Seems like a reasonable and appropriate edit. Dyanega (talk) 01:12, 13 January 2024 (UTC)