Talk:Polistes atrimandibularis

Peer Review

Overall, a great job! I really enjoyed reading this article and found it quite informative. This species seems quite interesting, especially in terms of its parasitic nature. I read through the entire article looking for writing errors and made minor edits to various sections in the article. Initially, I thought the article started off slightly repetitive, especially in the ‘Overview’ and ‘Taxonomy and Phylogeny’ sections. It would be great if you could find a picture to add to the right hand box.

Question I had:

1. Description and Identification: “They also have an enlarged first femur and a longer posterior tibia that is useful for when they must maintain a dominant position within the host colony.”- how is this feature useful in maintaining a dominant position?
2. Distribution and Habitat: “...to find elevations at lower colonies.”- I didn’t really understand what you were trying to say here? Seems unclear

Sentences to consider revising:

1. Secondary Nests: "Unlike the two other Polistes social parasites, in addition to invading the primary nest, which are used solely for reproductive purposes, P. atrimandibularis simultaneously usurps surrounding host nests.”

Sandyamuchimilli (talk) 22:40, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

General Edits

I mostly focused on the first few sections from "Overview" to "Behavior" and within all of these sections I just resynthesized the information so that there wasn't as much repetition or drawing out of sentences. I also added our class banner to the top of the talk page. Overall though, I thought the article was very well written. The only other edits I would suggest would be to add more pictures so that the text can be broken up and the article will look more aesthetically pleasing. I would also be careful about the use of "is" and "are" when referring to P. atrimandibularis because at times both words were used interchangeably. Samontenegro (talk) 13:41, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Small Changes

1. Under the section “Taxonomy and Phylogeny”, Polistinae does not need to be italicized so I removed this feature. I also revised the second sentence to include a colon and take out the comma after P. sulcifer to remove any confusion from the format of the original sentence.

2. There was a slight typo under the “Parasitism” section. I changed the word from foundres to foundress.

3. I made a slight change to the sentence under the “Secondary Nests” section: “From these nests, the parasites take larvae and pupae to use as food for feeding the larvae.” I changed “the larvae” to “their own larvae” for clarification.

4. Under the “Host Impact” section, I changed the spelling from effects to affects. Jazdeb (talk) 08:17, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

More physical descriptions & grammatical change

This article is off to a stellar beginning with information about Polistes atrimandibularis. However, I have a few suggestions to improve the article. For starters, there should be more information under the section “Descriptions and Identifications”. I suggest including information about the physical description specifically about the color of the wasp. Also, I recommend adding more details on how to decipher between a “small” and “large” wasp by including specific measurements if possible.

I had a difficult time reading this sentence under the “Parasitism” section: “They do not have specific strategies for each of the host species they invade, instead, they utilize a generalized strategy for all of their invasions.” I recommend making a slight change: Rather than devising specific strategies for each host species, they utilize a generalized strategy for all of their invasions. Jazdeb (talk) 08:19, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Suggestions/Corrections

Great start to your article! Here are just some corrections I made and suggestions you should consider for expanding the article further and improving its clarity.

• I linked the word “inquiline” to its respective page because it is a key ecology term that readers most likely would not know.
• You have inconsistent usage of “is” and “are”(singular vs. plural verbs) when using P. atrimandibularis as a subject noun. You tend to shift from “P. atrimandibularis is” to “P. atrimandibularis are.” P. atrimandibularis is a species so it should be referred to as “it” (singular); if you want to employ the use of plural verbs, you can consider using a plural noun (e.g. wasps).
• A section regarding kin selection might be important to understanding the ecological implications of being a parasitic species. Potential questions you may want to address are:
  • Is the sex ratio perhaps affected to prioritize females, since the females are the ones who infiltrate nests?
  • Does kin selection occur when there are two separate kin groups in each colony that the parasite exists in (the host group and the parasite group)?
  • Is the parasite’s ability to trick recognition such that the host group would end up selecting for the parasite group?
• Because communication is so key to the way the parasite enters host nests, it might be necessary to expand the section on communication.
  • In particular, the statement “P. atrimandibularis has the ability to modify its own chemical signature along with the host’s nest signature” is incorrect; only the queen is capable of modifying its own chemical signature. The offspring instead rely on the fact that the queen has altered the nest’s chemical signature and cannot alter their own or the nest’s chemical signature by themselves.
  • Possible articles to consider that address this recognition system are:
    • http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/268/art%253A10.1007%252Fs000400300013.pdf?auth66=1411673974_d9a7b6ca958b5df0c03e75d6bd41d7e0&ext=.pdf
    • http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/717/art%253A10.1023%252FA%253A1020906631121.pdf?auth66=1411673988_a7e4ba04a41154d71df93b7bd84fec94&ext=.pdf
• You should try to avoid phrases such as “P. atrimandibularis is interesting in the fact that it is” because such phrases make sentences bulkier and more awkward without adding any substantive content to the article. Marecto (talk) 02:09, 3 October 2014 (UTC)