Monad?

[Deb London]

Occasionally I will come across an event advertised such as "Monad recording for the London Flora Project". I tried to Google what Monad meant, and it seemed to be something to do with protozoa. If it means microorganisms, how are they recorded?

[thunder]

Originally Posted by Deb London

Occasionally I will come across an event advertised such as "Monad recording for the London Flora Project". I tried to Google what Monad meant, and it seemed to be something to do with protozoa. If it means microorganisms, how are they recorded?

It's a bit of new fangled botanical (and other groups) recording jargon. It means a 1km square (of the National Grid). A tetrad is a 2 x 2 km square (four monads) and a hectad is a 10 by 10 km square (one hundred monads). Everybody (almost) knows what a 1km square is, but not so many can fathom monad. But hey ho, it's a new word, so it must be good

henrya

[Deb London]

Ha, ha, ha. I nearly went out and bought myself a portable microscope.

Thanks Henry.

[Paul mabbott]

Originally Posted by thunder

It's a bit of new fangled botanical (and other groups) recording jargon. It means a 1km square (of the National Grid). ..........., so it must be good

henrya

Well, I've been using it for at least thirty years .... It is a word of long-standing but, I think, was not so commonly used because precision/accuracy of plotting used not to be as great as now: the tetrad was the most commonly used unit, or even the decad.

[Paul mabbott]

Originally Posted by Deb London

......., and it seemed to be something to do with protozoa. If it means microorganisms, how are they recorded?

I've not heard of monad as a generalisation in this context although bacteria which belong to or are like Pseudomonas sp are referred to as pseudomonads. Similarly unicellular algae like Chlamydomonas are referred to as chlamydomonads .... so I see a pattern!

However, for most geographers, a monad is a 1km square of the UK National Grid.

[STYRBJORN]

As against a Leibnizian windowless monad . . .

Ric

[Deb London]

Thanks Paul.

This was my Google search:
define:monad - Google Search

Couldn't see the 1 km definition in there.

I'd quite like to get the definition added to Google, but I don't know how to do this.

Hopefully the search engines will find this WAB thread though.

[thunder]

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

Well, I've been using it for at least thirty years .... It is a word of long-standing but, I think, was not so commonly used because precision/accuracy of plotting used not to be as great as now: the tetrad was the most commonly used unit, or even the decad.

I never heard it in biological recording until very recently. Haven't heard of decad, either - is that a rectangular mapping unit? Or just something geographers use?

henrya

[Paul mabbott]

Originally Posted by thunder

I never heard it in biological recording until very recently. Haven't heard of decad, either - is that a rectangular mapping unit? Or just something geographers use?

henrya

It has long been there. I suspect that only people who used it knew of it - one of those things! Certainly the tetrad was used much more commonly, especially by bird people.
A decad is the 10km square.

[thunder]

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

It has long been there. I suspect that only people who used it knew of it - one of those things! Certainly the tetrad was used much more commonly, especially by bird people.
A decad is the 10km square.

I certainly never came across monad - must have been quite a small group of people who used it. As for decad, people now seem to call them hectads. No doubt someone will think up another name in time.

henrya