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  • From: Heide Hermary <heide.hermary AT gaiacollege.ca>
  • To: Permaculture Information Web <piw AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [piw] relationships implementation
  • Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 17:15:25 -0800



Chad Knepp wrote:

o Since we only have plants at the moment, how should we represent
relationships with non-plant elements (animals)?

There are not just animals, but microbes as well, and they can be antagonistic (as in diseases, pests, etc.), or synergistic, as in mycorrhizae, nitrogen fixing bacteria, pollinators, etc.. Knowing the specific species involved in all relationships would be helpful, wherever that is possible. For instance not all nitrogen fixing plants form relationships with the same species of basteria. Most plant diseases and pest are very finnicky about their diet (i.e. the plants they care to eat). I think if we want to go beyond current concepts we can start right here, by treating all of these as equals and partners to their relationships

o What sorts of information should a relationship have? Things
like: A list of plants contained in the relationship. One [or more]
word[s] that describe[s] the relationship.

See above. So much more information is needed

o Should relationships be owned? editable? moderateable?

Considering how little information we currently have about these, people should not be restricted from entering information. I am questioning the need to "own" a relationship between organisms. I see this more like a huge multidimensional web, where different organisms have many different relationships with many other organisms. Thus specific relationships don't need to be defined per se, they either are or aren't.

For instance, a plant can have many pollinators. Would you define the relationship as "pollination", or as a relationship between 2 organisms. In case of the latter, the relationship can actually be multi-dimensional (such as a plant providing nectar to ladybugs that come and feed on aphids, or whatever).

I don't know if that makes sense.

o What's the difference between a quality/attribute and a
relationship? For example is nitrogen fixing a relationship or an
attribute? What about alleopathic (sp?) properties?

I already talked about the nitrogen fixing relationships. Allelopathic compounds are products produced by plants, not necessarily attributes (unless we want to take the human centered perspective here). As such they are used to regulate the plant's relationships (i.e. protect itself from predators, competitors, etc., BUT they may also and simultaneously be used to encourage other organisms! -). Who knows if we can ever understand all that, it is sooo complex, but it would be useful for the database to NOT limit the evolution of our understanding.

o What's the difference between a comment and a relationship?

A comment might define or describe the relationship.

o How is a relationship different from a natural plant community?

Relationships are specific arrangements between organisms, a natural plant community is only one manifestation. In reality those plants have relationships with all kinds of other organisms, including insects, animals, microbes. How detailed do you want to get?

Cheers, Heide

Also the techie folks on the list can feel free to chime in with
suggested schema (relational/SQL stuff). Remember different
relationships are probably going to be one-to-one, one-to-many,
many-to-one, and many-to-many.







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