Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Multigenomic organism

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to Symbiosis#Mutualism . feel free to merge anything useful Spartaz ^Humbug! 14:59, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Multigenomic organism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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This article has a misleading title that does not accurately reflect its subject matter and is not in accord with scientific consensus on the meaning of the term "multigenomic organism". It appears to describe obligate symbionts (a page which does not yet exist), not multigenomic organisms. A multigenomic organism would be an organism that is described as a belonging to a single species but which happens to have several distinct genomes - potentially from symbiogenesis or allopolyploidy. One could conceivably have a multigenomic organism without a symbioic relationship (i.e. organisms with distinct nuclear and mitochondrial genomes that arose as a result of symbiogenesis would not be called symbionts because the two ancestral organisms have ceased to be distinct). I think that this article needs to be heavily revised or, preferably, deleted in accordance with WP:TNT ("the damage is fixable, but the effort in doing so dwarfs the effort involved in merely starting over"). In its place, it would be ideal to create separate pages for both obligate symbionts and multigenomic organisms and highlight the potential for confusion. Lagomorphae^(t) 02:41, 23 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Lagomorphae^(t) 02:55, 23 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organisms-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 03:13, 23 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge to Symbiosis#Mutualism (with some rewrite to fit there, perhaps with a new subsection), if I understand correctly the topic (it is not so much a matter of WP policy there). I do not agree with the TNT invocation as I think there should be no article at all at Multigenomic organism; reasons detailed below.

A "multigenomic organism" would be one that includes multiple genomes. The confusion with symbiosis comes from the problem of what an "organism" is. For instance, human intestinal bacteria could not survive outside the human body, the human host needs them to survive, and neither is eliciting an immune system response from the other. Debating whether there is one organism ("human") with multiple genomes or multiple organisms (human + bacteria) with one genome each, living in symbiosis, seems a bit moot to me.

Since there is no real-life example of multigenomic organism that could not be rewritten as obligate symbiosis, even if in theory you could imagine some (say, having different genomes for liver cells than for hearth cells) I do not think that it warrants more than a mention on the symbiosis page such as "Organisms in mutual obligate symbiotic relationships are sometimes considered as a single organism with multiple genomes".

Oh, and some sources would be good, in any case. Tigraan (talk) 12:06, 23 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Striked some, see below. Also notice that my "merge" is almost the same thing as the "move and rewrite" below. Tigraan (talk) 09:28, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Move and rewrite or delete. The content of the article is a valid topic, and the title is a valid topic, but they don't go together. There are real examples of organisms that are referred to as "multigenomic" (mostly arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, but I see some bacteria and protists described with this term also). If there's anything in the content of this article worth preserving, move it to obligate symbiont; otherwise delete it. Meanwhile, write a new article at this title on actual multigenomic organisms. Opabinia regalis (talk) 22:35, 23 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Move/rewrite. I agree with Opabinia regalis. A quick google scholar search using the link above reveals several papers on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and Deinococcus radiodurans, both of which are described as multigenomic organisms and have been shown to carry several distinct genome copies within a single cell. AMF are a perfect example of why it is important to distinguish between multigenomic organisms and obligate symbionts: In addition to having multiple genomes per cell (i.e. being multigenomic organisms), AMF are also obligate symbionts with vascular plants. The current page for multigenomic organism confuses these two properties.
  Furthermore, I cannot find evidence of scientific researchers studying symbiotic partners referring to them as a multigenomic organism. The only example of such a usage that I found was in a philosophy dissertation discussing symbiotic microbes and their hosts. The author uses the phrase "multigenomic organism" only once to refer to the collective unit of a host and its symbionts, preferring to use the term holobiont. (For an in-depth explanation of the term holobiont, see this article).
  I think the best solution would be to create obligate symbiont and move any useful content from this article there. Multigenomic organism should be rewritten to describe organisms with multiple genome copies per cell, in agreement with how the term is used by biologists. This article should contain a section acknowledging other uses of the term (e.g. as a synonym for holobiont) outside of the field of biology.Lagomorphae^(t) 02:31, 14 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Being given the current organization of symbiosis and related articles such as Mutualism_(biology), I think it would be better to add a subsection somewhere rather than creating a standalone article. If the host article needs to be summarized-split afterwards because of length, then so be it, that is regular editorial work. Tigraan (talk) 09:28, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect to symbiosis, for which it is a type. Bearian (talk) 16:30, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.