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Nerd95 wrote:I agree completely. I have been doing ecology for three years now and it is my top event since Awesome Aquifers left. I work very hard every year to get top and I think that the sheet makes the event too even of a playing field. I think that because of the sheet, the event will be even harder to win.

Anyways, I am sort of confused on taigas. Any good books or websites? (I might just put taiga info on my sheet!!)

I LOVE the event ecology and was so disappointed to hear about the reference sheet...I mean I admit that it was an EASY event, but what separated people were the small details...which can now be put on that reference sheet.
For me, studying the biomes is just googling information. I just go through different websites and take notes on what they say.
You can start here:
http://www.runet.edu/~swoodwar/CLASSES/ ... taiga.html
http://www.taigarescue.org/index.php?view_article=70
http://www.taigarescue.org/en//index.php?sub=2&cat=5

I'm personally glad they have a sheet. I know that the test is easy and stuff, but there are some specifics that I will be glad to be able to put down on paper.

the last question in MS for the past two years about the population of the world. The first one was What was the population of the world to the person at eight o'clock this morning, and this past year, it was what will the population of the world be to the person at eleven o'clock this morning. Do any of yall have anything like that?

According to http://www.runet.edu/~swoodwar/CLASSES/ ... taiga.html
the larch is deciduous.
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larch
it is coniferous.

Consensus?

The Wikipedia article actually contradicts itself and says both.

Larches are conifers in the genus Larix, in the family Pinaceae.

They are deciduous trees, growing from 15-50 m tall.

Since both Wiki and the other site say deciduous, I would assume that is the correct classification.

AlphaTauri wrote:The Wikipedia article actually contradicts itself and says both.

Larches are conifers in the genus Larix, in the family Pinaceae.

They are deciduous trees, growing from 15-50 m tall.

Since both Wiki and the other site say deciduous, I would assume that is the correct classification.

The Tamarack (Larch) has cones and needles, which change color in the fall and drop off in the cold whether. So since it has cones it is conifer and if decidous is defined having its photosynthesis parts stop working and fall off in the winter than it is also decidous.

Or at least that was what I was taught in Envirothon.

I remember the Larchs from Forestry...those were like some of the only trees I could ID.

Don't trust Wikipedia. Anyone can change it. You mentioned that it contradicted itself. It was probably written by one person, and then edited by another.

oxfordcrew wrote:Don't trust Wikipedia. Anyone can change it. You mentioned that it contradicted itself. It was probably written by one person, and then edited by another.

Try it sometime and see how long your change lasts. Wikipedia is quite reliable for heavily traveled topics, although it becomes less and less reliable as the subject matter gets more esoteric. The real problem here is the assumption that coniferous and deciduous are exclusive categories; as OtherWhiteMeat has pointed out, they are not. The larch is a deciduous conifer.

Flavorflav wrote:

oxfordcrew wrote:Don't trust Wikipedia. Anyone can change it. You mentioned that it contradicted itself. It was probably written by one person, and then edited by another.

Try it sometime and see how long your change lasts. Wikipedia is quite reliable for heavily traveled topics, although it becomes less and less reliable as the subject matter gets more esoteric. The real problem here is the assumption that coniferous and deciduous are exclusive categories; as OtherWhiteMeat has pointed out, they are not. The larch is a deciduous conifer.

I always figured it was the opposite.
Less people are likely to even know the name of the esoteric topic, so you'll have less people modifying it.
Whereas more people know what an elephant is (for example), so there's a bigger chance that that will get changed.

The way I see it anyway.

gneissisnice wrote:

Flavorflav wrote:

oxfordcrew wrote:Don't trust Wikipedia. Anyone can change it. You mentioned that it contradicted itself. It was probably written by one person, and then edited by another.

Try it sometime and see how long your change lasts. Wikipedia is quite reliable for heavily traveled topics, although it becomes less and less reliable as the subject matter gets more esoteric. The real problem here is the assumption that coniferous and deciduous are exclusive categories; as OtherWhiteMeat has pointed out, they are not. The larch is a deciduous conifer.

I always figured it was the opposite.
Less people are likely to even know the name of the esoteric topic, so you'll have less people modifying it.
Whereas more people know what an elephant is (for example), so there's a bigger chance that that will get changed.

The way I see it anyway.

The thing is, Wikipedia locks the heavily traveled articles so that random people can't change it. Also, someone may think that they know a lot about an esoteric topic, while they really don't know much (or have incorrect information). Then they write the article about it, and it makes Wikipedia look untrustworthy.

I don't use Wikipedia for serious research, but I think it's fine if you're just curious about a topic. For Science Olympiad, I would recommend finding a different source, but that's a matter of opinion