Wikipedia:Peer review/Myco-heterotrophy/archive1

Myco-heterotrophy

(Note that I am the main author and maintainer of this page.) So far, this has been rated as a Good Article. The article is in very good shape and has even been reviewed by Martin Bidartondo, one of the top authorities on this subject. I would like to have this article peer reviewed to see if it meets the criteria of an A-class article, and if not, what should be done to the article to bring it up to A-Class. (Note that the article is not long, but it is on a fairly specialized topic that does not require a long article.) Peter G Werner 20:18, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nice article. I don't claim any scientific knowledge of the subject but it generally reads well. Some comments and questions:

Is the bold text in the second section consistent with wp:mos? Most articles do not have so much bold text and confine it to the first paragraph.
The paragraph that starts "The interface between..." is confusing. To what is the 'It' in the second sentence referring? The interface? The first sentence is also confusing. In which association? A partial or full myco-heterotrophic one? Or all of them?
Is the word 'ultimately' necessary?
Can you use the link to the external website as a source for a new article (which you could then link to)? Or could this info go in another existing article?
Do the fungi do anything to stop the parasitic plant?
Will one variety of plant always be associated with one variety of fungus or will many different fungus types support the plant?
Are there any characteristics that all myco-heterotrophic plants share across the various groups that they come from? Or never have?
How common are these types of plant? JMiall 00:39, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take this point by point

The bold text is consistent with WP:MOS. Many of these alternate terms represent existing redirect pages. Full and partial mycoheterotrophy represent a further introduction of terminology related to the core subject.
Changed "It" to "Myco-heterotrophy".
I'll think about that, but I think the word "ultimately" is necessary. Myco-heterotrophy strictly refers to the relationship between the parasitic plant and the fungus; when looking at the bigger picture of the mycorrhizal plant/mycorrhizal fungus/parasitic plant relationship, the parasitic plant is an epiparasite (an indirect parasite, or parasite on a symbiont).
External links and further reading are sources of other articles on the same topic or more in-depth reading, even though I did not use these as sources for the article. I think this is nonetheless useful information to provide for the reader who may want to explore the topic further, even if I don't intend to use them to expand the article. I don't think the number of external links is excessive.
There's no material on fungal defenses against myco-heterotrophic parasitism because I know of no research that's been done on this subject as of this date.
Host/parasite specificity – will have to do more reading on that and add something to the article on this. I'm pretty sure snow plant (Sarcodes sanguinea) is associated with only one or a few species of Rhizopogon, while Allotropa virgata is parasitic upon matsutake. I'm not positive most myco-heterotrophic relationships are this specific – I'll have to some more reading.
One characteristic that all share? Well, many (though not all) are non-photosynthetic, and I discuss that in the article.
How common? Not sure how to answer that. As I mention, myco-heterotrophy is not uncommon in the plant kingdom. But in terms of how often you come across plants like this – it depends on the habitat, really. If I'm not mistaken, most northern coniferous forests contain at least a few monotropes and/or non-photosynthetic orchids. Anyway, that's not really a question most papers on the subject address, and I'm not really sure how to address that without starting to go into the realm of original research.

Peter G Werner 01:30, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looking back at point 4, I was unclear on what you meant, but now I see – you're refering to the line to "common mycorrhizal network". Yes, in fact I think Wikipedia should have an article "Common mycorrhizal networks", but it doesn't, so I use the external link as a substitute for this shortcoming in Wikipedia. That's a whole other potentially big topic to take on. Do you think a better stop-gap solution might be to create a stub article for "common mycorrhizal network" with a link to the external article? Peter G Werner 01:36, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would personally prefer a stub that includes the link as further reading rather than just a straight link to an external website. Who knows, someone else might populate the stub for you once it is created. On the characteristics question what I was driving at was 'do myco-heterotrophic plants always share certain characteristics apart from ones obviously related to myco-heterotrophy' like maybe leaf or seed types (maybe this is a daft question, apologies if that is the case). JMiall 18:38, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, APR _t 02:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some useful suggestions here, though many of the boilerplate suggestions really don't apply. I don't think the article needs to be longer than it is. I'm trying for an A-class short article, not a Feature Article. As for copyediting, I've been pretty thorough with that (including printing several drafts and doing red-letter editing by hand). If somebody else wants to provide another set of eyes, they're welcome to. On the other hand, the suggestion to expand the introductory section so that it summarizes the article as a whole is a sound suggestion, and I'll do that. Also, I'll actually provide references for where these plants have been called "mycorrhizal cheaters" and the relationship seen as a biological "cheating" relationship. Peter G Werner 10:26, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]