Talk:Dolichovespula adulterina

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This article was the subject of an educational assignment in Fall 2014. Further details were available on the "Education Program:Washington University in St. Louis/Behavioral Ecology (Fall 2014)" page, which is now unavailable on the wiki.

Recommendations

1. Italicize every genus and species that you mention on your page

a. Under the “Taxonomy and Phylogeny” section, there are several times when the genus Dolichovespula and Vespula is not italicized.

2. Link more words to Wikipedia pages. Here are some sections that I thought could use more direct linking but try to do them throughout your article.

a. Under “Taxonomy and Phylogeny” section, I would recommend linking words such as monophyly, clypeus, and other words that you think help the reader understand.
b. Under the “Identification” section, link Neartic, Palearctic, melanin, and tergum.
c. Under the “Parasitic behavior” section, link Vespula austriaca page in this sentence: This is different from other inquiline species such as V. austriaca who will attack the nest’s queen immediately.

3. Picture size

a. The picture is too large and not fit for the page. Use the thumbnail upload link and not the actual image link. Your Wikipedia expert should be able to help you if you need it.

4. Vary your sentence structure

a. Under the “Identification” section, the first three sentences all begin with “The”. I would recommend varying your sentence to make your article more interesting and engaging to the reader.

5. Repeated Sections

a. You have two sections talking about the distribution of your species. I would consolidate them into one section so you avoid repetition.

6. References

a. For source 7, is that the correct method to cite a Wikipedia source? Instead of citing the Wiki page, I would just directly link the word Holarctic by adding the double brackets around the word.

7. General thoughts:

a. Overall, there is lots of information about Dolichovespula adulterina. It is well written and organized in a very logical manner.

Elee715 (talk) 01:11, 18 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions: italics, more link outs, and more

Overall, this article has a lot of information about Dolichovespula adulterina.

More information: I suggest adding more information to the “Biology” section towards the end of the article. The current information does not provide any additional knowledge about the species that has not already been mentioned.
Minor changes: I italicized species names (D. adulterina and D. arctica) under the “Identification” section. Under the “Nearctic Habitat” section, I erased the word “a” in the sentence “D. arenaria resides in a various climates.“ I also provided two external links to the Wikipedia pages for trophollaxis and Emery’s rule. I would consider using more links to pages for unfamiliar terms such as monophyly.
Citations: Although I assume the citation in the “Nearctic Habitat” section applies to the whole section, it is conventional to include a citation at the end of each paragraph/sentence to show the source of that particular fact. Thus, I recommend either consolidating the three paragraphs into one paragraph or including the 2nd citation at the end of each paragraph in the section. Under the “Parasitic Behavior” section, it may be useful to have an in-sentence citation for the sentence “Workers of the host species were observed interacting with the D. adulterina,..” It would be helpful to include the actual experiment where this behavior was observed. Otherwise, consider changing the wording to “have been observed” if this behavior is generic.
Repetitiveness: As user Elee 715 stated, the last “Distribution” section is repetitive and does not contain a complete sentence. I would consider either eliminating it or adding it to the earlier section on “Distribution and habitat”.
Recommended subsections: I found the “Colony Cycle” section very interesting. I recommend breaking this into subsections based on the particular hosts or cycles you mention (i.e. Nearctic region hosts and Palearctic hosts). This can help direct the reader to two slightly different colony cycles more easily.

Jazdeb (talk) 06:55, 18 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Split

If the taxonomic split of D. adulterina sensu lato into D. adulterina sensu stricto and D. arctica is accepted then this article needs to split into two articles. This would involve careful reading of the sources to see which of the new species are being referred to. Has this split been widely accepted? Quetzal1964 (talk) 20:58, 10 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Further split: A good portion of this article applies to the genus Dolichovespula, but not to the parasitic species, D. adulterina. This species does not build nests, nor hunt prey. It doesn't have a worker caste. Those paragraphs should be transferred to the genus. They do not belong here at all. --Polinizador (talk) 01:25, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]