[AGA Contest] biotope guidelines

["roger" <roger@spinn.net>]

I thought we needed two things; some simple guidelines to let people know what
entries were appropriate for the Biotope/natural tank category and a way to
better fit biotope tanks into the existing scoring guidelines.

One thing I'd like to get to first is the definition of just what a biotope
is.  "Biotope" is a technical term with a specific definition.  In some areas
the designation of a "biotope" even carries regulatory implications.  If we
use the term incorrectly then we are likely to foster misunderstanding.

The definition I found earlier was: "A region environmentally uniform in
conditions and the flora and fauna which live there." I've read a few other
definitions, but this seems to capsulize the term pretty well.

There's one important thing to keep in mind that a biotope is *not*.  It is
not a specific locale.  The same combination of physical characteristics and
species population can occur in many different locales over fairly wide
regions.  For instance, "silt-bottomed pools in streams discharging less
than 20 cfs with conductivity under 3000 uS/cm" may carry the same species
population over thousands of square miles of the southern rolling plains and
in hundreds of streams, but it would be the same biotope in each case.

Similarly, defining a locale may not define a biotope.  For example,
"Penholoway Creek at the US Highway 25 bridge near Jesup, Georgia) is a rather
specific locale, but it does not define a biotope.  At that location there is
both an open channel area that might be occupied by one species association
and a riparian swamp that might be occupied by a different species
association.  Those would be different biotopes.

So what does that mean to the Biotope/Natural aquarium category?  I guess that
depends on what you see valuable in the category.  To me the value of a
biotope aquarium is that it represents a specific set of physical conditions
and supports a group of species that would live naturally together under those
conditions.  A "regional theme" aquarium could include a wide variety of
species from some broadly generalized area ("SE Asia", "Amazon Basin") that
would never be found living together.  A regional theme tank doesn't have
either the value or the inherent restrictions of a biotope aquarium.  I think
theme tanks should be entered in the aquatic gardens category.

Can we change the name of the Biotope/Natural Aquarium category?  Regardless
of the original intent I don't think that most people see biotopes and natural
aquariums as being the same or even similar things.


Roger Miller
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