Permaculture Information Web

[Heide Hermary <heide.hermary AT gaiacollege.ca>]

Sean Maley wrote:

 I have been
envisioning "relationships" to mean between one or
more organisms, rather than "nitrogen fixing" and the
sort.  For one, "nitrogen fixing" is a type of
relationship, not a relationship.  

What does relationship mean? In the nitrogen fixing situations the bacteria capture nitrogen gas from the air in the soil and transform it - either within or on the immedite surface of - the plant root  in exchange for carbon compounds.  This is a direct and deliberate trade association.  Other nitrogen fixing bacteria just live in the soil, and I am not aware of any having such direct relationships with plants.  So personally I would call that relationship a food / food trade or exchange  rather than "nitrogen fixing".  Of course there any many different types of food / food relationships, and maybe one of them would be called "nitrogen fixing".  What, then would you call mycorrhizae? I don't know the answer of course, somehow we need to come to terms with the complexity

I database of
relationships between all species to all other species
would be sizable, but possible.  However, all species
to all species to all types to compound relations
involving more than two species will be mighty big.  I
imagine this to be one of the fundamentals about what
the project could provide to the community.
  

Yes, that would be in immense piece of work, of course only possible through cooperation by many, many people across the world and with many different areas of expertise

How many species would be involved in the most complex
relationships?  How many relationship types would be
needed to encompass the whole picture?  

Who knows? I don't think anything of this nature has ever been attempted.  And maybe it is way beyond what everybody else envisions.

How does your
current database capture this information?
  

Actually it does and it doesn't.  It would capture it in plain text format, but I find that our students don't think in those terms, even if they think they do.  My personal feeling is that this simple human-centered mindset is at the root of our current ecological problems, but then who knows.

Cheers, Heide

Wiki technology is absolutely fantastic for creating immediate and meaningful links.  My dream database would be one that is dynamic like Wikis, yet more structured in that it looks for specific type of information.  Sorry, I have zero understanding of the technical aspects.

Cheers, Heide

-Sean.
--- Heide Hermary <heide.hermary AT gaiacollege.ca>
wrote:
  

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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