[WikiEN-l] Re:Writing with our readers in mind

[Chris Jenkinson]

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Jon wrote:
> A good example of the difficulties is outlined in today's featured article on the Island Fox. The bit on the main page includes the sentence "Its small size is a result of [[island dwarfing]], a kind of [[allopatric speciation]]". Come again! To find out what that means you have to wade through the technical article [[island dwarfing]] and [[allopatric speciation]] - and to begin to understand the latter, you also have to try to understand [[speciation]]. I think it means - "It is small because it is on a small island", but why not just say that?

(could you turn on word-wrap please)

Being of a small size is advantagous on an island, so over time through
natural selection the animal evolves to become smaller. I'm not an
expert on it, but it's probably due to competition for resources -
resources on an island are limited and smaller animals need less resources.

Allopatric speciation is where two seperated groups of a species become
physically seperated (e.g. by water or mountain ranges), and over time,
through natural selection, they evolve different characteristics due to
the different environments they inhabit, eventually resulting in 2
different species, as the two different groups have sufficiently
different characteristics that they cannot reproduce, or their offspring
are not fertile.

Hope this explains it for you,

Chris

- --
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org
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