Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biology

Group living

Have you seen this article? Group living

Despite being an important topic in ethology, it gets very little attention, with only 5 daily pageviews and 25 revisions since it was created in 2019. This is what I assumed would be the topic for Gregariousness, but Gregariousness redirects to Sociality. Do you think the pages should be merged? Or should group living be renamed to gregariousness or the redirect target changed? Melozone crissalis (talk) 20:43, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

Nomination of Relict hominid for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Relict hominid is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article is being discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Relict hominid until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the AfD notice from the article until the discussion is closed.

—Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 16:42, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Kingdom (biology) § Requested move 10 May 2026

An editor has requested that Kingdom (biology) be moved to Kingdom (taxonomy), which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You are invited to participate in the move discussion. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 17:49, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

Note: This is a requested move for multiple pages –

• Kingdom (biology) → Kingdom (taxonomy)
• Class (biology) → Class (taxonomy)
• Order (biology) → Order (taxonomy)
• Domain (biology) → Domain (taxonomy)
• Tribe (biology) → Tribe (taxonomy)
• Section (biology) → Section (taxonomy)

—Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 17:49, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

Cleanup needed on Twin

Hi folks! I noticed that the section Twin § Animals needs some attention from someone more familiar than me with the subject. It was added in one go in 2023 with incomplete parenthetical references—I've gone through and found what I believe to be the correct articles where I could, but a few I could not find. However, the section needs to be rewritten and given the quality of the prose and references, I'm concerned that the section may not be accurate or verifiable. I will also note that one of the sources I completed triggered a predatory open-access journals warning. Thanks,  —Em-as-in-emily (talk) 07:29, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

"Domain (biology)" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Domain (biology) to the article Domain (taxonomy) has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2026 May 18 § Domain (biology) until a consensus is reached. – Scyrme (talk) 18:25, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

June 2026 GAN Backlog Drive

Good article nominations | June 2026 Backlog Drive
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:59, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Question about Reprogramming history

Hey all, I had a quick question before I made a change to an important biology article. A while back, I made the biography for Mary Clutter. Her research history involved her doing work in the 1960's that would later end up falling into the yet to be coined subject of Reprogramming. Now, the history section of the latter article claims that John Gurdon was the first person to showcase the subject in a 1962 publication on animal cells. Meanwhile, in 1961, Clutter published research showcasing the conversion of phloem cells in plants into xylem cells using hormonal applications.

Would this not count as a successful representation of reprogramming and prior to Gurdon's work? I was thinking I need to update that history section to add Clutter and reframe Gurdon's work as the first such application in animal cells. I notice our reprogramming article seems to largely discuss only mammals though (despite Gurdon's work even being on frogs), but that might just be our article not properly discussing the breadth of the subject in the first place. But what do y'all think? Silverseren^C 23:09, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

evolutionary group

The phrase "evolutionary group" is used 39 times. I think it's a pretty vague term and that maybe it should be avoided. Isn't 'clade' better? What exactly can "evolutionary group" mean? Thx. ---- Kweetal nl (talk) 17:09, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Clade has a specific meaning and should only be used if the group being described is in fact a clade. Here are the search results for those interested. I haven't looked at these yet. "Evolutionary group" is indeed vague. It's not ideal but my sense is that it may be acceptable in some article contexts, particularly where the discussion is otherwise non-technical and where the specific type of "evolutionary group" doesn't need to be specified or is not well-defined. These would need to be reviewed individually to determine whether a change is necessary and, if so, what exactly the change should be. Replacing all of these with "clade" or any other term would be in appropriate. —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 22:48, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

I looked at the first 10 results and my findings are mixed. For example, at Textulariida "evolutionary group" appears as a piped link to clade. This seems like a reasonable approach to me. It could perhaps be reworded to use the word "clade" and provide a brief definition but if the results are awkward it may not be an improvement. Aristideae also uses it in a piped link to clade and I find the usage there entirely appropriate. At Narayanaswamy Srinivasan it appears in a proper name and definitely should not be changed. At Scleroglossa we find: Together, Scleroglossa and Iguania make up the crown group Squamata, the smallest evolutionary grouping to include all living lizards and snakes. I find this to be a helpful way to explain what type of thing a crown group is. At several of the Pseudomonas articles it is explained that several organisms that were once thought to belong to a single species are actually part of another "evolutionary group" that is presently understood to consist of multiple species. Here again I think "evolutionary group" is suitable. If a more precise term like species complex is accurate it might be substituted but I don't see a problem with the text as-is. Overall, I don't see a big problem here and this sample confirms my initial intuition that the usage can be appropriate and that a one-size-fits-all approach is inappropriate. —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 23:35, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

Can anyone explain the/a difference between 'clade' (a clear, definite term) and 'evolutionary group' (a vague term, as you seem to agree)?

(I agree it's not a big problem but why tolerate 'vague' where 'clear, definite' is available?) - Kweetal nl (talk) 05:25, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

An "evolutionary group" could be a taxonomic rank or its members, a clade, a paraphyletic group, a crown group, or any other group of organisms with a particular degree of relatedness. The meaning is context-dependent. In the Scleroglossa example I quoted above, "evolutionary group" is used to help define for readers what a crown group is. This is a good example of following the guidance at MOS:NOFORCELINK. Readers can click the link to crown group for a detailed description but the brief explanation helps readers quickly understand the term. In writing for a general audience, we must balance the use of precise language and appropriate introduction of biology jargon with accessible writing that is approachable to otherwise literate readers with little or no background in taxonomy. I provided a few examples above where "evolutionary group" is currently used to refer to something other than a clade. —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 05:49, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Hm, I don't quite agree but fair enough; I see what you mean.

In the meantime it occurred to me to search pubmed for 'evolutionary group' and results include lines like: "strains in this study were in the same evolutionary group (clade A), while the closely related WF3099 and WF3279 strains were in different evolutionary groups (clade B and clade D), respectively."

So in these cases at least the terms seem to be used more or less as equivalents. Thanks for your input - Kweetal nl (talk) 05:56, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Biochemistry § CHNOPS and related redirects

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Biochemistry § CHNOPS and related redirects. —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 22:35, 25 June 2026 (UTC)