Talk:Polistes semenowi

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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.

Peer Review

For my review I only changed a few minor things and have a couple of suggestions. I went through and removed a couple of links that I didn't think were necessary like those for usurp and annually. I also switched the link to parasite to obligate social parasite and reworded a couple of sentences. I would suggest changing the distribution map to a close up one of Italy and Croatia so you can better see where the wasp is found. You might also want to add a note in the Usurpation section saying that “changing her cuticular hydrocarbons” is explained in the Camouflage and mimicry section. I was somewhat confused about the hydrocarbon information. Are these molecules that change the scent of the wasp or something else? Could you add somewhere what they are to make this a little clearer? Overall the article is very well written and interesting! Ashleyearley (talk) 22:03, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Peer Review

Within the article, I noticed that you often shifted from “it” to “they” when describing your species. I tried to change this to be consistent throughout article, sticking with “it”. In addition, I fixed several grammar issues that were disrupting the clarity of your thought. For example, in the description section, you had stated that the P. sulcifer relies “on the nests of its hosts species P. dominulus, made of typical paper wasp material with many combs”. It was slightly confusing as to if the nests or the species itself was made of “typical paper wasp material”. It was also confusing if the nests were made of paper wasps or just paper. There were several similar changes to this made throughout the article. In addition, due to some coding errors, some of the species names were not italicized so I fixed all of these.

The article contains engaging, in-depth discussion of the brood parasitic nature of the P. sulcifer. What I personally did not quite understand, and thus could be better explored within the article is the dominance hierarchy within P. sulcifer females in the same colony (not just between the P. sulcifer and the P. dominulus within the same nest). Because all P. sulcifer females are reproductive and not technically workers because the P. dominulus provides all the workers, do young P. sulcifer females born in the nest stay and care for the colony as well? Wouldn’t these females gain more direct fitness by leaving and trying to take over their own P. dominulus nest? Does this happen often? Does the queen P. sulcifer also try to dominate the young P. sulcifer or do they only dominate the P. dominulus females? Perhaps this issue could be explored in a section relating to kin selection.

In addition, because the P. sulcifer has such a strong relationship with the P. dominulus, the article could expand on perhaps a comparison between these two species and other ways the P. sulcifer has adopted features similar to that of the P. dominulus. For example, when going through your references, I discovered that both the P. sulcifer and the P. dominulus could secrete ant repellent, perhaps because they share the same pests. This could be another interesting path to expand upon in your article. Overall, this article was both a fascinating and informative read. Diana He819 (talk) 9:05, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Minor edits and changes for clarity

This is a very well-written article about a very interesting wasp. The writing of these piece was good, and you did a great job with providing sources to back up every piece of information you brought up.

I made the following minor edits:

1. The proper binomial name for the host wasp species is Polistes dominula, not Polistes dominulus. I edited the entirety of your article in order to reflect this, and also updated the links for P. dominula so that they connected directly to the proper article instead of being redirected.

2. I changed some of the wording in your description for clarity.

3. I added in links for Polistes semenowi, one of the other obligate social parasites that your article mentions

Below are some suggestions for content:

1. Polistes sulcifer is not part of the subgenus Sulcopolistes - it was mistakenly thought to be an entirely different genus but was incorporated into Polistes by Carpenter in 1991.

2. You state that P. sulcifer larva feed on what P. dominula feeds them - what is that, exactly? I was confused, and I think some detail here would be great.

Ruaha (talk) 05:08, 3 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Additional feedback

Hi Kirinne. Really nice work on this article - it's nicely put together, well written and very readable. It's also a really interesting species. I have some feedback on how you might improve this article - mostly very minor stuff.

You start several sections with the phrase "As has been mentioned". Three problems with that - it's very passive voice, which doesn't make for the best reading, it isn't specific enough (if you want to reference a previous section of text, you should be specific about where that text is located and, ideally, you should link to the section where the text is), but mostly, it presumes something about the future state of the article that can't be taken for granted. Once this article is moved to the main article space, it will evolve, probably in ways you never envisioned. Those "previously mentioned" sections may no longer exist, or they may have been moved further down the page. A future reader might come across your text and be baffled. For that reason, it's best to let sections stand alone, as much as possible.
In the 'Reproductive suppression' section you write "it is hypothesized"; it's better to write "it has been hypothesized" (since someone came up with the hypothesis at some point in time, it's not an ongoing phenomenon). Better still is to say who it is that suggested this.
Your current reference #12 is to another Wikipedia article. Wikipedia articles shouldn't be cited as sources (they aren't considered reliable sources, since anyone can edit them) but you could link to them directly.

As I said this is nice work, and it's a really interesting topic. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 12:27, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

One more thing, for future reference: it's better to use citation templates for references, rather than simply formatting the references as text. References inside templates can easily be updated as needed, and this can be done by automated processes. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 12:38, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Some feedback

This article is very well done. I still have one suggestion to make it even better. The 3 different sections that follow the Colony Cycle section seem a bit random. The information is obviously pertinent to Polistes sulcifer, but I wonder if there's a better way to organize this information. The section titles do not lend to understanding what the purpose of the section is. Maybe you could market this information as unique things about Polistes sulcifer, or just general behavior information? Jamiehalpern (talk) 19:25, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions

This article briefly covers topics relevant to the classification and survival of the species, such as its distribution and behavior. The species is interesting because it does not have the ability to create nests, and relies on its host species, polistes dominula, for a home in which to rear its progeny. The article, however, fails to include some of the most important topics in the study of insects. It is missing categories regarding its procreation, defense strategies, and recognition amongst individuals, all of which relate to survival of the individuals and their genetic transmission. Mating and reproduction is the only viable method for gene survival, but the article only discusses the role of the queen wasp for laying eggs. The defensive and/or aggressive strategies used by the wasps are important to mention, since they are a means of getting nutrition and territory or surviving predator attacks. The ability of the wasps to recognize members that do not belong to their group is vital for using those defense mechanisms. I agree with the article’s C-Class rating on the Talk Page, because however extensive the article is, it is missing significant categories. However, I disagree with the low-importance rating given because these wasps are essential for pollination and hence maintenance of the ecosystem. Roohi.byakod (talk) 19:47, 10 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]