Wikipedia:Peer review/Wood-pasture hypothesis/archive2

Wood-pasture hypothesis

Previous peer review

I've listed this article for peer review because my previous peer-review was closed mid-process, and I'd still appreciate a general assesment.

Thanks, AndersenAnders (talk) 11:24, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi @AndersenAnders! I have never heard of this theory before, but I'm happy to read about it here. My biggest overall comment is that in many places, things could be phrased more succinctly. For example, in the lead I don't think it's necessary to go into so much detail, some information feels redundant, and even the section headings could be shortened.

As a test, I re-worked the very first paragraph. My goal is to improve brevity without losing any nuance. Since you're the expert, you'll have to be the judge of that. Forgive me if my butchering it, but here's an attempt at a shortened first paragraph (Also, I removed the citations per MOS:LEADCITE since nothing here is likely to be challenged, as you are not making any outrageous claims):

The wood-pasture hypothesis, also known as the Vera hypothesis or the megaherbivore theory, is a scientific hypothesis positing that open and semi-open pastures and wood-pastures formed and maintained by large wild herbivores, rather than primeval forests, would have formed the predominant type of landscape in post-glacial Europe. Although a similar theory had been proposed by Oliver Rackham, who criticised the idea of an all-encompassing, dark primeval forest in pre-Neolithic times, it was Dutch researcher Frans Vera, who, in his 2000 book Grazing Ecology and Forest History, first developed a comprehensive framework for such ideas and formulated them into a theorem. Although highly controversial, Vera's proposals came at a time when the role grazers played in woodlands was increasingly being reconsidered. The wood-pasture hypothesis is credited with ushering in a period of increased reassessment and interdisciplinary research in European conservation theory and practice.

Does this flatten nuance or does it still capture what you're going for? If you find this helpful, I'm happy to help identify more places where things can be shortened! GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 18:46, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi @GuineaPigC77, and thank you for taking on the matter!

First of all I should perhaps tell you that English is not my mother tongue, German is, and although I do consider myself fluent in the language, I obvioulsy am not as proficient as a native speaker, and I don't have the "feel for the language" a native can develop. I do make mistakes. So if you find any, or if some bits seem wordy to you and not the way a native speaker would phrase them, please feel free to correct them.

I am aware of the fact that I tend to write complicated sentences, which often is the way I prefer them, but I am happy with brevity if it helps conveying the message, especially since this obviously isn't my article and should always remain accessible to a casual reader.

As for your suggestions, I am mostly very pleased with them. However, I am not sure I would call the thoughts Rackham expressed a theory. It was more the case that he and certain other people, mostly ecologists, had doubts about the prevailing high-forest theory, because it didn't really align with what they knew and experienced; that many native organisms thrive in half-open and open conditions and not so in forests. But these doubts remained ideas, because they didn't quite make the connection to large herbivores or other possible factors as causal agents, and thus couldn't present a strong counter-proposal. I would say it was more of a feeling for them that things couldn't have been that way. Therefore I would like to stick to "(...) a similar idea had been proposed (...)"

I think I would also like to keep the sentence "Although Vera largely focused his research on the European situation, his findings could also be applied to other temperate ecological regions worldwide, especially the broadleaved ones." in some form, to make it clear that the hypothesis does not exclusively pertain to Europe.

Finally, I would prefer to keep the citations in what is the last sentence in your version, to avoid.

Otherwise, I am happy with your suggestions! --AndersenAnders (talk) 12:01, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Great! I'll bet if we work together, I can help with brevity and readability, and you can make sure my suggestions don't lose accuracy or completeness. I can make suggestions for the remaining paragraphs of the lead. But I will make them here, so that you can review them :-) GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 18:12, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Here are some (very light) suggestions for the second paragraph. (Also, I split into two paragraphs. Is that possible?):

While Vera's ideas are controversial, they continue to lay an important foundation for the rewilding-movement. While his proposals for widespread semi-open savanna as the predominant landscape of temperate Europe in the early to mid-Holocene have been largely rejected, they do partially agree with the established wisdom about vegetation structure during previous interglacials. Moreover, modern research has shown that, under the current climate, free-roaming large grazers can indeed influence and even temporarily halt vegetation succession. It has also been questioned whether the Holocene prior to the rise of agriculture provides an adequate approximation to a state of "pristine nature" at all, since by that time anatomically modern humans had already been omnipresent in Europe for millennia, most likely with profound effects on the environment.

The severe loss of megafauna at the end of the Pleistocene and beginning of the Holocene known as the Quaternary extinction event, which is frequently linked to human activities, brought about a profound change in the European large mammal assemblage and thus ecosystems as a whole, which likely also affected vegetation patterns. However, the assumption that the pre-Neolithic represents pristine conditions is a prerequisite for both the "high-forest theory" and the Vera hypothesis in their respective original forms. Whether or not the hypothesis is supported may thus further depend on whether or not the pre-Neolithic Holocene is accepted as a baseline for pristine nature, and thus also on whether the Quaternary extinction of megafauna is considered natural or man-made.

How does this look? GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 18:49, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Good, we can work that way!

I think I would start the sentence differently there: "Vera's ideas continue to lay (...), but remain controversial." This way we avoid the unintended anaphora "While (...). While (...)."

Similar to before, I would want to prevent any possibility for^{[by whom?]} (it haunts me) in the last sentence of your first paragraph, so would prefer to keep sources in place. I believe I didn't heavily cite the "wild herbivores influence and even halt vegetation succession" part in the main body or didn't mention it even outside the lead, so either we rephrase this or the citations should remain in place there as well. More on this tomorrow (It's getting late over here, and I'm getting tirred :-) )

I like the dual aesthetic! --AndersenAnders (talk) 19:33, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Okay great! I looked up the word anaphora and I agree with your comment. And yes, I agree it's best to avoid the ghosts of "by whom".

• The first two sections, Names and Definitions, are both short - is it possible to combine into a single paragraph? Perhaps the section could be called "Names and definitions" or simply "Definitions". Also, I might begin the section with something like "Vera's hypothesis goes by many names."
• High-Forest theory. Perhaps instead of "Contrary to Vera's ideas" it could say "Prior to Vera's ideas"? Also, the figure whose caption starts "The natural succession..." has a lot of detail so I think we can increase the size. In this whole section, I think it would be good to start each paragraph with a short topic sentence, to aid the reader.

More comments to come. GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 02:46, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

• In the section Wood-pasture hypothesis#Shifting mosaics and cyclic succession, the diagram could be cropped a fair amount. I don't mind doing it if you can tell me how - I've always wanted to learn. I assume you just edit the commons file?

GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 03:18, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I should have linked to anaphora!

• I agree, I don't object to a merge, "Names and definitions" is okay by me.
• Also okay by me, but then maybe "Prior to Vera's ideas (...) and remains the view favoured by many."? This is a delicate can of worms, and the field remains divided between those maintaining a squirrel could have crossed Europe without ever touching the ground and those who say Europe was covered by a vast grassland intermixed with some trees. For many this is still not even a question because in many fields the closed primeval forest paradigm remains virtually unchallenged. Also because of the wole interconnectedness with the Quaternary extinction event and the whole topic of where we put the baseline for pristine conditions. Both of which are themselves contentious topics. Therefore I tried to avoid bold statements throughout the entry and would like to keep it that way. I agree it would be better to increase the size of the image, but I don't know what is commonplace here. How exactly do you envisage the short topic sentences? One sentence to round up the content before going into details? If so, go for it!
• Ooh, not sure how to do that either. I made the image so I could change and upload it, but I don't know how to change the commons file here on Wiki, sorry :-/

--AndersenAnders (talk) 11:32, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Apologies for the delay @AndersenAnders, juggling a few projects. I plan to get back in a day or two. GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 05:40, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

No worries, actually it's a busy time for me as well so I don't mind. AndersenAnders (talk) 17:30, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Oh I'm happy to learn the word haha! No complaints :-)

• #Large herbivores in relation to the high-forest theory. It starts out "In this framework..." I would say more concretely, "In the high-forest theory framework..."
• #Background: Grazers and browsers I really like "A fundamental factor that influences the way". It's a good way to start the paragraph – it helps orient me to what you're talking about. Also, I did some minor edits to the second paragraph. I can do more like that, but I just don't want to break it!
• #Vera's alternative hypothesis. The first sentence is really long. I'd split it into two (or three). In fact, same comment for most of the sentences in this section.

GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 05:28, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestions, I have sought to implement some of them.

• Done
• I get what you mean now, and I agree it's a good way of letting readers know what you're going for. If you have ideas how to transform more leads ths way feel free to do so.
• Attempted, do you think it's better now?

I'm sorry I didn't get back to you for some days. I'm trying to be more active again starting from now. Do you think we should start implementing the changes we agree on now or should we discuss the article in length before starting to edit whole-scale?

AndersenAnders (talk) 18:13, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi @GuineaPigC77, are you still at it? No pressure, I'm busy too, more of a general question. -AndersenAnders (talk) 16:25, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Oh sorry @AndersenAnders! Didn't see that you were back. Yes I'll take a look at the recent changes and I'm happy to keep going through it together! GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 02:12, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Recent changes look good!

Attempted further cleanup for Vera's hypothesis section. I added some footnotes to explain my reasoning.

Vera's hypothesis, in contrast to the high-forest theory, holds that although the warming climate of the onsetting Holocene in Europe provided conditions that would allow for the formation of a closed-canopy forest, this forest was largely kept open by wild herbvores. Historically, these herbivores included aurochs, European bison, red deer and tarpan; prehistorically, many other megafaunal mammals shaped more open landscapes instead by grazing and browsing, and likewise also did so in previous warm interglacial periods. Vera's hypothesis further states that lowland forest did not emerge on a large scale before the onset of the Neolithic period and the subsequent local extinctions of herbivores, allowing forests to thrive more unhindered. Indeed, investigations point to at least locally open circumstances, for example in floodplains, on infertile soils, chalklands and in submediterranean and continental areas, but maintain that forest largely dominated.

However, the wood-pasture hypothesis is to some degree based on the Quaternary extinction event. Around the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary, which started around 130,000 years ago but reached a maximum extinction rate from 13,000 to 8000 years ago, a large amount of the world's megafauna died out. The most popular example is the woolly mammoth, but these animals included almost all megafaunal above 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) on the northern hemisphere, in Latin America, Australasia and the Pacific islands, as well as in Madagascar and the Caribbean.

In his book Vera also discusses the decline of ancient oak-hickory-forest communities in Eastern North America. He argues against the widely accepted assumption that these communities are a product of frequent fires, instead suggesting that herds of American bison that roamed the East coast in the pre-settlement period kept the forests open. Thus, Vera's hypothesis supports the idea that light-demanding plant communities consisted of oak, hickory and hawthorn species among others.

As it stands, the wood-pasture hypothesis builds on the overkill-hypothesis, which holds that human hunting was the dominant factor for the Quaternary extinction event. It was coined by Paul S. Martin in 1966. Related models, overall favouring a human cause, as opposed to the climate change hypothesis, attributes the extinctions solely or mostly to changes in climate. Thus, the hypothesis says that human exploitation led to the extinction of the megafauna, leaving ecological niches previously occupied by megafaunal animals vacant and leading to forest vegetation ultimately.

Paleoecological evidence drawn from Coleoptera deposits has also shown that, albeit in small numbers, beetle species associated with grasslands and other open landscapes were present throughout the Holocene in Western Europe, suggesting that open habitats were present, but restricted. However, insect assemblages from previous interglacials (when the larger megafauna were still present) indicate widespread warm temperate savannah, pointing to the possibility that elephants and rhinos were more effective creators of open landscapes than the herbivores that remained after the Quaternary extinction event. On the other hand, traditional animal husbandry might have mitigated the effects of possibly human-induced megafaunal die-off, and thus enabled the survival of an array of species associated with, or dependent on, landscapes created and maintained by megafauna.

In some respects, the wood-pasture hypothesis bears similarity to Gradmann's steppe theory which was proposed by Robert Gradmann but challenged and refuted by e. g. Reinhold Tüxen and Karl Bertsch.

GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 19:10, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Oh, so it worked out after all! Well, I simply used LibreOffice Draw for this and decreased the size of the margins. Does this suffice for you?

Ok, I will try my hand at writing more introductory sentences. The first paragraphs deals with pro arguments exclusively. -AndersenAnders (talk) 16:51, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Oh and I noticed you cropped the vegetation succession image. How did you end up doing, that may I ask? GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 19:15, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Oak and hazel section. Again here, topic sentences will help to clarify what each paragraph is about. Is the first paragraph outlining arguments for or against Vera's hypothesis? Both? It's a bit unclear to me. The topic sentence should say something like "Several lines of evidence point towards Vera's hypothesis." Or possibly "Vera's hypothesis is supported by some evidence but refuted by other evidence." GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 23:45, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi @GuineaPigC77,

I'm happy with the first paragraph.

Not sure there. Your wording seems odd to me. I'll try to break the pargraph down so you know better what I mean: The Quaternary extinction event started around 130.000 years ago, but reached its peak, so to speak, around the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary, roughly 10.000 years ago. It principally affected the majority of big mammal (>45 kg ~ 99.2 lb) taxa, but mammals above 1000 kg (2204.6 lb) were affected most severely, not in absolute number of extinct species but in proportion, as they vanished completely from the regions mentioned in the text. Perhaps it is better to say: "The most popular example is the woolly mammoth, but these animals included all megafauna above 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) on the northern hemisphere, in Latin America, Australasia and the Pacific islands, as well as in Madagascar and the Caribbean." since the almost refers to exceptionally large Bovid bulls (American and European bison, aurochsen). Today (I.e. since the Quaternary extinction event) there is no animal left in these regions that attains these sizes on a regular basis. Maybe it is better to use all and make this clear in a footnote?

Again, the wording seems odd to me. Perhaps this paragraph could use some more explanatory notes? The forests of the American East-coast are currently still dominated by light-demanding oak and hickory communities, in the upper storeys, that is. But the undergrowth largely consists of shade-tolerant species, especially red maple, a species that increased rapidly in abundance since the European settlement, due to reasons still poorly understood. (My reasoning is lack of disturbance and fire, maple does not usually deal well with these but is very shade-tolerant). Anyway, this led to the notion of oak regeneration failure, because oak (and hickory, as far as I know) do not usually regenerate well within closed stand i.e. forests. This applies especially to once-dominant species such as white oak. Red oak on the contrary, which is more shade tolerant, seems to increase in abundance. So the question is: what influence created the conditions that made shade-intolerant species in particular thrive in the presence of shade-tolerant taxa? The answer usually given is fire, Vera suspects it was browsing pressure. But that these plant communities did consist of light-demanding species is a matter of fact denied by hardly anybody.

"As it stands" does not serve any particular reason. It does not have a functional purpose there, I simply liked to word it that way. Perhaps it is redundant, so if you feel that it is inappropriate or odd we can delete it, no worries. "It" refers to the overkill-hypothesis. The term was coined by Paul S. Martin. I don't understand the rest of this paragraph in your version? Is the syntax right?

Megafauna is plural, singular would be megafaunal animal. I believe :B AndersenAnders (talk) 16:46, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Ah sorry sounds like I misunderstood. I guess that's why were doing it here and not directly in the article!

P1. Cool.

P2-3. Your clarifications make sense to me. In fact, they way you explained it to me above is great. Very clear. I wonder if you could work that language into the paragraph itself? If you're concerned about WP:TONE, I wouldn't worry for now, since we're just workshopping the section, but once it's clearer, we can fix things like tone before publishing.

P4. In that case, I would remove "As it stands". That expression usually implies that something is changing and that we are getting a temporary snapshot of the situation.

P5. Cool. I will follow that singular/plural pattern.

Re: image, I'm interested in how you uploaded it - did you have to somehow link it to the original? I see that both images are present on the commons page.

Overall my biggest suggestion at the moment is to re-phrase the Vera's hypothesis section using language more similar to how you explained it to me! I think that will work very well. GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 19:38, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Okay, this is my attempt of a rephrase:

Vera's hypothesis, in contrast to the high-forest theory, holds that although the warming climate of the onsetting Holocene in Europe provided conditions that would allow for the formation of a closed-canopy forest, wild herbivores kept vast areas in temperat Europe relatively open, park-like. Historically, these herbivores included aurochs, European bison, red deer and tarpan. Prehistorically, many other megafaunal mammals like the straight-tusked elephant or Merck's rhinoceros existed in Europe as well, and may have kept the forests open during warm interglacial periods like the Eemian interglacial. Furthermore, Vera postulated that lowland forest did not emerge on a large scale before the onset of the Neolithic period and subsequent local extinctions of herbivores, which in turn allowed forests to thrive more unhindered. Indeed, investigations point to at least locally open circumstances, for example in floodplains, on infertile soils, chalklands and in submediterranean and continental areas, but maintain that forest largely dominated.

However, the wood-pasture hypothesis is to some degree based on the Quaternary extinction event, which started around 130,000 years ago but reached a maximum extinction rate from 13,000 to 8000 years ago, around the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary, and includes the woolly mammoth as a popular victim. While this extinction event affected many groups of primarily land animals, large animals above 45 kg (99.20 lb) and especially megafaunal animals above 1000 kg (2.200 lb) were affected most severely; the latter group vanished completely from the northern hemisphere, Latin America and Australasia. Besides these regions, extinctions were also centered on the Pacific islands, Madagascar and the Caribbean, while Indomalaya and Sub-Saharan Africa were proportionally less affected.

More so in his book Vera also discusses the decline of ancient oak-hickory-forest communities in Eastern North America. For long it was noted that many forests stemming from Pre-Columbian times feature light-demanding oaks and hickories prominently, but that these do not readily regenerate in modern forests; a phenomenon commonly referred to as oak regeneration failure. Instead, shade-tolerant species such as red maple and American beech often prevail. While the cause is still poorly understood, a lack of natural fire is commonly presumed to play a role. Vera, however, suggested that the grazing and browsing of wild herbivores, most importantly American bison, would have created the conditions oaks and hickories need for successful regeneration to happen, and explained the modern lack of regeneration of these species in forests with the mass-slaughtered of bisons commited by European settlers.

The wood-pasture hypothesis builds in part on Paul S. Martin's overkill-hypothesis and related models that favour a human cause for the Quaternary extinction event, as opposed to the climate change hypothesis which attributes the extinctions solely or mostly to changes in climate. Thus, the hypothesis says, human exploitation led to the extinction of the megafauna, leaving ecological niches previously occupied by megafaunal animals vacant and leading to forest vegetation ultimately.

Paleoecological evidence drawn from Coleoptera deposits has also shown that, albeit rare, beetle species associated with grasslands and other open landscapes were present throughout the Holocene in Western Europe, which points to open habitats being present, but restricted. However, insect assemblages from previous interglacials when the larger megafauna was still present indicate widespread warm temperate savannah, pointing to the possibility that elephants and rhinos were more effective creators of open landscapes than the herbivores left after the Quaternary extinction event. On the other hand, traditional animal husbandry might have mitigated the effects of possibly human-induced megafaunal die-off, and thus enabled the survival of an array of species associated with or dependent on landscapes created and maintained by megafauna.

In some of its aspects, the wood-pasture hypothesis bears similarity to Gradmann's steppe theory [de] which was proposed by Robert Gradmann [de] but challenged and refuted by e. g. Reinhold Tüxen and Karl Bertsch [de].

What do you think? AndersenAnders (talk) 13:33, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Re: image, umm, I clicked on "upload a file" (under "contribute" on the left side of the screen). Then I clicked on the earlier version of the image and there was an option to upload an updated version. I then selected the updated version from the files on my device and uploaded it. I think that was all I had to do. AndersenAnders (talk) 20:16, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

The new text works well and is much clearer to me! Some minor things:

• "temperat" -> "temperate"
• "More so in his book". More than outside of his book? Phrasing feels weird.
• "mass-slaughtered" -> "mass-slaughter" (?)

It looks great! I'll keep going to the next section. (Thanks for explaining the upload to me!) GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 05:01, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

• I think all figure captions should be self-contained. For example, in the Oak and hazel section, the 3rd and 4th images refer to words used outside of the caption. In the 3rd image: "Over time, such "shrub-oaks" enlarge in width..." and in the 4th image, "Ultimately they may form..." I checked WP:CAPTION and it doesn't say anything explicitly, but it does outline several types of readers, such as those who scan the article and look at the images, so it seems appropriate to make sure this type of reader can understand it.
• Wood-pasture hypothesis#Other European light-demanding woody species. Here's an attempted simplification:

Vera prominently argues that since other light-demanding and often thorny woody species exist in Europe—species such as common hawthorn, midland hawthorn, Crataegus rhipidophylla, blackthorn, wild pear and crab apple—their ecology can only be explained under the influence of large herbivores, and that in the absence of these they represent an anachronism.

As always, if my re-writes make no sense feel free to ignore them! Just offering some options. GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 05:43, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Great!

Thanks for pointing out!

- "Temperat" was a slip of the pen...

- "More so" was intended as a synonym for "On top of that" or "furthermore". Should I use these instead?

- Here, I rephrased the sentence and forgot to change the ending. Mass-slaughter, it is.

- Figure captions: I see, my intention was to have one continuing block of images with text there to explain the process of oak regeneration on pasture. Do you think/know of an option to contain several images in one block? Otherwise I should perhaps do how you say.

- Wood-pasture hypothesis#Other European light-demanding woody species fine! AndersenAnders (talk) 16:50, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

• Ahh I see. Yes I would use "Furthermore," instead of "More so". Another possibility is "Moreover,".
• Figure captions. One possibility is to use a WP:GALLERY. The second paragraph of that policy states "Generally, a gallery or cluster of images should not be added so long as there is space for images to be effectively presented adjacent to text", but the paragraph concludes with "...unless a point of contrast or comparison is being made." I think in this case, the thing that binds all the images together is that it's a chronological progression of the life of the oak. It seems that a gallery could be appropriate here. If we pursue this route, the page suggests Women's suffrage in New Zealand as a good example of a gallery. We might try arranging the 4 images side-by-side. Another possibility would be to use a WP:MONTAGE. I think it's worth trying a gallery first because the images do have a fair amount of detail so the reader may want to expand individual images.
• Underrepresentation of grasses and insect-pollinated plants in pollen deposits. I'd change "consequently" to "therefore".
• Large herbivores as overlooked drivers of vegetation patterns. This paragraph only contains one citation, I would add a few more, even if it's the same source. Also, I'd suggest splitting the longer sentences into multiple sentences. The image in this section also has the same "they" problem, but I think this one can be fixed easily by replacing "they" with the noun to which it refers.

GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 21:48, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for the tip, this is how a gallery for a pasture-oak's life would look like:

Furthermore, new species of oak mildew (Erysiphe alphitoides) observed on European oaks for the first time at the beginning of the 20th century have been cited as a possible reason for these differences, since they affect the shade tolerance, particularly of young pedunculate and sessile oaks. Although the origin of these new oak pathogens remains obscure, studies point to it being an invasive species from the tropics, possibly being conspecific with a pathogen found on mangos

• 
  Oak sapling (left) growing in direct vicinity to a young blackthorn shrub.
• 
  Being relatively hardy to browsing, (e. g. by roe deer) oaks (shrub in the corner) are generally able to establish under moderate grazing pressure, depending on the conditions.
• 
  Over time, established "shrub-oaks" may enlarge in width, being eventually able to shoot up in the centre, where the developing tree becomes inaccessible to herbivores.
• 
  Ultimately, pasture-grown oaks, such as these pedunculate oaks in the Breite Oak Tree Reserve near Sighișoara, may form large, old solitaires. In rural landscapes, these old solitary trees are often signs of ancient silvopasture regimes.
• 
  Eventually, through disease, lightning strike or old age, oaks begin to decay and die, leaving precious habitat for a variety of species.

AndersenAnders (talk) 17:40, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

I quite like it. Also because that way we could round out the oak and hazel section and avoid the current situation where images end up further down the article where they don't necessarily belong in context. And I think the gallery aesthetic makes the progression clearer. What do you think? AndersenAnders (talk) 17:47, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

I'll try to find sources for #Large herbivores as overlooked drivers of vegetation patterns. Maybe tomorrow if I find the time.

"Oak and hazel section. Again here, topic sentences will help to clarify what each paragraph is about." I tried to tackle this in my last public edit, what do you think? AndersenAnders (talk) 18:22, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

The gallery looks great. I do think it makes it clearer that you're showing the progression over time. Speaking of, would it be possible to show the approximate age of the oak at each stage? I'm not sure if that's something people do, but this reader is curious. I'll be interested to see what the gallery looks like in the article, but I think it's worth trying! I will look at the other changes soon. GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 08:13, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Pew, not sure about the age... I would say the sapling in the first image is two to four years old. The shrubs' age is hard to estimate, as under the influence of browsing even bonsai-like treelets can be decades, perhaps centuries old. In these cases the base is a good indication. I'd say the shrub oaks are somewhere between 10 and 50 years old. The trunk visible in the 3rd image is perhaps 20-30 years old, but the plant itself may be significantly older than that. I'd estimate the old oaks in the images 4 and 5 to be somewhere between 300 and 400 years old. But these are very rough estimates that may be completely off the mark. AndersenAnders (talk) 12:08, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

That's a long life span and I can see why adding dates would be hard due to variability. Fair enough. The gallery seems to work here.

Shifted baselines:

• Paragraph 1. A gentle copyedit (apologies for any content problems I accidentally introduce):

In nature conservation, a shifted baseline is a baseline for conservation targets and desired population sizes that is based on non-pristine conditions. The term was coined by marine biologist Daniel Pauly, who observed that fisheries scientists at times used the population sizes of fish at the beginning of their own careers as a baseline, notwithstanding whether these baselines had already been diminished by human exploitation. He noticed that these scientists' estimations markedly differed from historical accounts. Consequently, he concluded that over generations, the baseline that is considered to be "normal" would change; as a result, the conception of a "depleted population" would also change. Pauly called this condition the shifting baseline syndrome.

• Paragraph 2. Can we replace the term "it may be argued" with "it has been argued" and then state who has argued this? If this is still Pauly, I would say so.
• First listed point. My attempt for improved readability (does it still make sense?):

While it is plausible that the victims of European Quaternary and Holocene extinctions, such as lions, leopards, hyenas, dholes, gazelles and moon bears, would naturally be native to Europe, none of these species are listed as such in the EU's Habitats Directive's annexes. This absence in conservation law, if applied also to globally extinct megafauna, would imply that elephants and rhinos should be considered native to Europe as well. Hence, any landscape that is considered to be natural, yet results from a situation where these are lacking, would necessarily be the consequence of a shifted baseline. It is very likely that the megafauna extinctions of the late Pleistocene and early Holocene had profound implications for European and worldwide ecosystems, especially given the paramount importance comparable animals have for modern ecosystems.

What do you think? GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 07:22, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

• Paragraph 1. We should keep "In this sense, the term was coined (...)" in place. The original coinage of the term has to be attributed to Ian McHarg in the context of landscape architecture. Pauly only coined the term in the context of nature conservation. "At times" was meant to express non-absolutism. Pauly himself admits that there are exceptions to his observation, i.e. fisheries scientists who did consider historical baselines. I wouldn't want to make it seem as though everybody before Pauly used wrong baselines, as this would be inaccurate. If "at times" is not adequate please feel free to make suggestions. Why "regardless of"? Is notwithstanding wrong?

"whether these baselines had already been diminished by human exploitation." sounds odd to me. I'm not sure a baseline can be diminished. I would think only the fish stocks the baseline is referring to can? Perhaps it is better to directly cut to the chase: "whether the fishing stocks they used as baselines had already been diminished"? Otherwise, fine.

• Paragraph 2. Well, it wasn't Pauly who said this. I'm not confident Daniel Pauly even knows about Vera's hypothesis. Vera himself of course refers to (not open access) Pauly's sifting baseline syndrome, but not in the context of megafauna extinctions. Sandom et al (open access) mention the importance of megafauna extinctions to the wood-pasture hypothesis discussion, but do not directly link it to Pauly's syndrome. What I was referring to by using "it may be argued" was, well, the elephant in the room and a bit of common sense. But if you want to source this statement Sandom et al would be a good source I think.
• Makes sense

AndersenAnders (talk) 10:42, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Okay cool!

• No objection to keeping "the term was coined" in place.
• Yes, if possible, I would change to "it has been argued" and cite Sandom et al. It kind of sounds like OR, even if it's not. I could be wrong.
• "at times". Okay I understand better what that means. In that case, I think "sometimes" might work better?
• Yes! I think "whether the fishing stocks they used as baselines had already been diminished" accomplishes the same thing but better.

More to come! GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 13:18, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Shifted baselines, second bullet point:

• "Vera points out, that words like" I would remove the comma
• Change "which it derives from" to "from which it derives"
• "From this Vera concluded, that" remove comma

Shifted baselines, third bullet point:

• "He further argues, that" remove comma
• "in this context was, that a seed" remove comma

Shifted baselines, fourth bullet point:

• I would split the first sentence into two
• The next sentence, which starts "At the same time,", is a bit unclear. I think it needs to be clear about which part of the sentence is an appositive phrase defining pannage, and which part is a different clause. Does that make sense?
• In the last sentence, the word "spacial" is unusual. Does it mean the same thing as "spatial"? If so, I would use the latter.

Shifted baselines, fifth bullet point:

• "legitimised by the assumption, that" remove comma

Shifted baselines, last paragraph:

• "a strong argument that may put Vera's etymological evidence" again here, I would consider attributing this reasoning to a source

Over all this section looks good, I'll keep going. GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 13:42, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

• Great, thanks. Again, do you think we should start implementing the agreed changes now or after we are done with the review?
• Otherwise, I have been thinking about the introductory paragraph for this section ("it may well be reasonable/is plausible (...)"). What this paragraph is referring to, of course, are the sources mentioned in the bullet point paragraphs below. Mainly Sandom et al. and Vera himself. Do I still have to support the statement?
• Else, no objections above the third bullet point.
• "The next sentence (...). Does that make sense?" Umm, frankly, no^^ For me the sentence is pretty clear, but I cannot, of course, look at it from a layperson's POW. Could you please elaborate what you think is unclear and how to fix it?
• Spatial, it is
• Last paragraph: the whole paragraph is based on the one source cited. That source supports everything said in this paragraph. This is how I went about it throughout the entry. If a sentence is not directly sourced, it is supported by the next source in the article. I.e. one source for several sentences that directly follow each other and deal with the same subject matter.

I have little clue about commas in English I must confess. German and English comma rules are very different and I tend to use too many commas in English. German uses commas much more excessively. I am going to fix these. AndersenAnders (talk) 12:05, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's fine to start implementing the changes now. If we workshop major things here and publish them once you think they're okay, it will make it easier to make minor changes (like copyedits or minor rephrases) directly to the article. And no worries! I can help fix commas too.

Okay I think I understand what is unclear. Currently the sentence is:

At the same time, the introduction of the potato would have made pannage, the fattening of pigs on acorns, obsolete, and grass species specifically bred for a high yield would have superseded the traditional pasturing in wood-pastures.

I don't think there is anything grammatically wrong with the sentence, but I do think it will be easier to parse the sentence if we put a semicolon after "obsolete" and removed the word "and". Is this possible:

At the same time, the introduction of the potato would have made pannage, the fattening of pigs on acorns, obsolete; grass species specifically bred for a high yield would have superseded the traditional pasturing in wood-pastures.

The specific issue with "It may well be reasonable..." is that this is being stated in Wikipedia's voice, but it should be made clear whose ideas these are. If you think it's already clear who did this reasoning, then I'd simply remove that phrasing, or replace it with "XXX reasoned that...".

Regarding the singly-cited paragraph, I see what you mean that the citation applies to the whole paragraph. I'll walk back my complaint. WP:CITE#Types of citation, second bullet point, says "An inline citation means any citation added close to the material it supports, for example after the sentence or paragraph, normally in the form of a footnote." I'm still new here! GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 23:17, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Oh, now I see what you mean! "At the same time (...)": the sentence deals with two issues in two clauses.

1. The seizing of pannage due to the introduction of the potato, which proved superior to the traditional acorn mast, and
2. the abandonment of wood-pastures as grazing lands for livestock, especially cattle, because grass-only pastures with "improved" grasses were more productive.

• Essentially, the former European wood-pasture system, which is now only active still in southern Iberia and parts of Romania, was a multifunctional system that provided forage for livestock, acorns for pannage (i.e. pig mast), tanbark for tanning (hence tanoak), oak galls for ink, fruit for people, coppice for firewood and charcoal production, bast for weaving (hence the name bass(t)wood), wood for construction timber and was also used for agroforestry.
• With the industrial revolution, each of these were intensified in production, and thus spatialy segregated. Now we have forest, pasture, orchards, agroforests and pig fattening factories all seperated. In wood-pastures, all of these goods were produced within one system, but wood-pastures couldn't deliver the large quantities demanded by a rapidly growing population.
• Maybe I should add "livestock" to make this clearer? I.e.: "At the same time (...) and grass species (...) the traditional livestock pasturing in wood-pastures."

No worries! IActually, I wasn't sure if this is an appropriate citation style and feel relieved to know it is. No complaint there!

Do you think we can replace whole blocks of text with the improved versions? I.e. do we have to edit every change we agreed on in the article or can we just delete old sections and copy paste new ones into the article? AndersenAnders (talk) 12:00, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Dunkleosteus77

• I'd recommend either using 1 image for the lead or using {{Multiple image}} to stack them vertically. Otherwise the text gets sandwiched Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 00:07, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
• With capitalizing family names, it's Ursidae and ursid Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 00:07, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
• Make sure to use {{cvt}} when using units to also display the conversion into English units Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 00:07, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
• "These would have included aurochs, European bison, red deer and tarpan, historically, with the addition of many other megafaunal mammals prehistorically" if I'm not mistaken, the prehistoric Pleistocene megafauna were extinct (or at least well on their way) in Europe by the Holocene Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 00:07, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
• I don't see how Vera is using etymology Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 00:07, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
• Don't use contractions Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 00:07, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
• The null hypothesis and alternate hypothesis are statistical terms Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 00:07, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
• If an ecosystem moves from an open to a closed one, the fire frequency will of course increase since there's more tinder available Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 00:07, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

  Thank you for raising these valid and helpful points @Dunkleosteus77,

  • Vera is using etymology extensively in his works and reasoning, for instance when he attempts to reconstruct the change of meaning in terms like forest or wold. He argues that their change of meaning reflects a change in perception of what is a forest. He goes on to suggest that initially in German, Naturverjüngung (natural regeneration) was more of a technical term and later took on the meaning of "spontaneous regeneration" which he argues had been reserved for Holzwildwuchse, a word that is now completely obsolele. Or when he proposes an intrinsic relationship between the words acre (Acker in German, not a unit but a synonym for "field") and acorn (compare German Buchecker for "beechnut") and consequently, that Acker would have been synonymous with "an oak-studded field used for pannage". With the introduction of the potato, the meaning would then have been transfered to the Kartoffelacker that superseded the oak wood-pastures after the oaks had been cleared to make way for potato cultivation.
  • Yes, the fire frequency will increase. I too find this quite straightforward. However, there's still a debate whether the herbivore numbers were large enough to sufficiently suppress vegetation and prevent fire. Large herbivores and fire can be seen as antagonists and there is ample evidence that fires are less frequent and, more importantly, much less severe in areas where healthy megafauna populations occur. After the Quaternary extinctions, North America saw a massive surge in fire testified by prominent charcoal deposits. But what is the point you are trying to make? AndersenAnders (talk) 10:57, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

"Others have highlighted the importance of disturbance factors other than herbivory, particularly fire, to prehistoric landscapes, pointing out that both the high-forest theory and Vera's model have largely ignored this possibility" implies fire frequency is a causal factor in whether a place is forested or not, rather than an effect Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 17:41, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

It can be both. Dense growth naturally attracts fire, but fire can conversely prevent dense growth. In the African savannas, fire plays an important ecological role. In the presence of megafauna, fires are comparatively modest and do not usually develop into the scorching, uncontrollable firestorms known from California or the Mediterranean because they lack fuel. Together with the herbivores, however, they prevent woody species from invading the grasslands. Lastly, this is not my idea, but an argument from the paper cited. AndersenAnders (talk) 18:40, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

@AndersenAnders Apologies for delay, I will probably be back to editing this week, and this project is still of interest to me! GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 06:10, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Alright, thanks for the info. No worries! AndersenAnders (talk) 19:14, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Jen’s notes

Well, I seem to have failed at “peer review” but I did have a field day last night reading and lightly editing this fine article. (My kids were almost late to school this morning because I stayed up too late with it last night!)

• The main thing I think I may have actually helped with was breaking up some longer sentences into two or three smaller more complete thoughts for the lay reader. There’s a lot of great material in here, we just want to make it digestible for the near-novice
• Similarly, I used the very scientific “huh?” template in a few places where I just didn’t follow. For a couple it seemed like there were two contradictory thoughts in one sentence and in a couple I could sorta understand the idea but it seemed randomly placed compared to the overall strong writing and structure of the article. I wrote little notes in the template’s explainer field. Use or discard as you see fit!
• I fixed a handful of minor typos
• I exerted my preference for e.g. flush rather than e.[space]g.
• I wikilinked some stuff and did minor style/copy edits
• I added book and journal templates to format some of the further reading suggestions
• I added some book titles to the further reading that are suitable for the generalist/novice
• I separated out External Links from Further Reading. There is no penalty (that I know of?!) for having “external links” within further reading suggestions; it’s just a listing for “if you want to know more or dig deeper than we can cover in an encyclopedia article, go here” — I tend to think of External Links section as almost like a Wikidata for all the wonderful non-authoritative but fascinating stuff on the general web (and as such I added a couple of relevant subreddits)

Overall I think it’s a high-quality article that contributes value to Wikipedia and is helpful to researchers who encounter it. Let me know if you have questions on what I did to it. I’ll be interested to engage with it going forward. jengod (talk) 17:07, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Jengod,

Thank you for your effort and edits. I sincerely hope that your childen didn't suffer all too much as a result of my work!

My gratitude is immeasurable and I would love to get to work in an instance, but these days I just don't find the time. There is a full queue of helpful edits from@GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤)'s review that I haven't had the time to implement yet so there is plenty of work awaiting me. I will try to get back to you around Christmas. Looking forward to it!

Until then all the best, AndersenAnders (talk) 14:25, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi @AndersenAnders just wanted to let you know my schedule probably matches yours - looks like I'll be busy for a few more weeks, but happy to get back to it after that! GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 18:24, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Hello @GuineaPigC77 and @Jengod,

I found the time to review your sugestions and changes. You can analyse what I did with them in my latest edit to the main page.

@Jengod there was one template you used (pertaining grasslands and how they are sometimes viewed as degraded forests) that I on my part did not understand. The notion itself threatens grasslands, not humans criticising it. AndersenAnders (talk) 19:39, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Lovely. I'll take a look. happy holidays. jengod (talk) 01:21, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Great. There is one template left untouched that I just don't know what to do with. The text says "(...) scholars of the 19th and 20th century (...)" and then, later "(..) their time (...)". There you added^[whose?] which I think is quite traightforwardly the time of scholas of the 19th and 20th century. Do you think this is unclear or would you want this to be more specific? Happy hollidays! AndersenAnders (talk) 17:29, 23 December 2022 (UTC)