Talk:Taxonomy of lemurs/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Ucucha 20:42, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"both through the discovery of new species and the elevation of existing subspecies to full species status"—and also the recognition of previously known populations that were not even distinct subspecies to species level, if I'm not mistaken.
Thanks. Let me know if the change reads okay. – VisionHolder « talk » 02:00, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
~~1753 should be 1758, shouldn't it? If I recall correctly, we looked at the 1753 edition and found that it didn't contain any lemurs.~~
Good catch. Fixed. – VisionHolder « talk » 02:00, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
~~"the populations of all species have decreased"—even the species that got introduced to the Comoros?~~
We're talking about species populations, not localized populations. There are no distinct species on the Comoros. – VisionHolder « talk » 02:00, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
True, but species that got introduced to the Comoros presumably had their populations grow (perhaps not enough to offset habitat loss in Madagascar itself). Well, we'll just let it be. Ucucha 12:40, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That may be true, but I have never seen anything in the literature to that effect. Conservation drives a lot of research, and most are concerned with preservation of their native habitat. I just don't think I would have any good sources, except maybe the IUCN Red List. – VisionHolder « talk » 16:51, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
~~Have you tried replacing as many cites to LoM2 as possible with LoM3 cites? Better to cite the last edition.~~
Done. Some references cannot be replaced, though. Comments made in the "Introduction" section, for instance, may not be made again in later editions. – VisionHolder « talk » 02:00, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
~~"naturalists and explorers, such as Alfred Grandidier and Alphonse Milne-Edwards."—I'm not sure, but I thought A. Milne-Edwards was also rather a museum systematist~~
I've removed him from the list, because the sources treat him as a co-author if at all. – VisionHolder « talk » 02:00, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
~~If there are multiple possible phylogenies for lemurs, why does the cladogram show only one possibility?~~
Especially since it fails to name which of the two it describes. Circéus (talk) 19:37, 21 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I originally added one because my talks with Dr. Godfrey and Dr. Yoder suggested that recent research was resulting in some agreement, and the (peer-reviewed) cladogram shown favored that agreement. Another problem is that one cladogram includes subfossil lemur families and the other does not. What are your thoughts about having two cladograms in the article, one with eight lemur families and the other with five? I really don't want to omit the subfossil lemurs, but at the same time, listing them requires giving one phylogeny preference over another. – VisionHolder « talk » 02:00, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If a new, more inclusive study gets published, we can use their cladogram, but in the meantime, it'll be better to give both, I think. Ucucha 12:40, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I will be working on this. – VisionHolder « talk » 16:51, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Lol! As soon as I get done adding both competing phylogenies, Dr. Godfrey sends a recent publication that has worked out a new phylogeny based on both Orlanda et al. and Horvath et al. In fact, it's identical to the old cladogram I had. See DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.21236 and let me know if you want me to restore the old cladogram and mention the new one in the text. – VisionHolder « talk » 18:07, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Second, the divergence of the remaining families occurred approximately 42 mya;"—what split is that? Between the aye-aye and the rest or the split among the non-aye-aye lemurs? If the latter, "remaining" is wrong; if the "former", the argument doesn't make sense.
Let me know if it reads better now. You were right—"remaining" was used incorrectly. – VisionHolder « talk » 02:00, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In "Genus-level classification", shouldn't you also mention Pachylemur (included in Lemur until c. 1979) and Babakotia (first named in 1990)? If you want to expand, there is of course a large number of old and weird genus-level classifications; Gray (1870) for example placed all cheirogaleids in Lepilemur (but corrected that in the appendix).
Babakotia wasn't a "change" (with species being moved out of an existing genus), which was the point of that list. As for Pachylemur, I just need to find a reference that talks about the shift. If needed, I guess I can cite Lamberton directly... As for the suggested expansion, do you feel that is necessary in order to meet the comprehensiveness requirement at FAC? I'm a little worried such work might come across more as original research. – VisionHolder « talk » 02:00, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the recognition of a new genus is still a change in genus-level classification—the list of genera changes. You also talk about newly discovered species in the species-level section. I think The Primate Fossil Record discusses Pachylemur. Lamberton only made it a subgenus, and it's been considered a genus since the 1960s or 1970s, and has also been included in Varecia in some classifications. Ucucha 12:40, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. They've been added. I didn't discuss Lepilemur/Megaladapis because it was a temporary change that was reverted, but if you feel it deserves a second mention in the article, just let me know. – VisionHolder « talk » 16:51, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"The first large wave of new lemur species descriptions came in 2001"—this may depend on your definition of "wave", but in 2000, we already got a lot of additional Cheirogaleus and Microcebus species.
Good catch. Let me know if the added text is sufficient. – VisionHolder « talk » 03:42, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"but which still disperses and interbreeds with nearby populations."—or which did so until recently? I can imagine that it is now totally isolated due to habitat loss, but perhaps the source does not talk about that.
To be honest, I don't know... and none of my sources (that I can find) talks about the effects of habitat loss. In LoM3, the map shows some ?'s around its range, so I don't know how much contiguous forest is has access to. – VisionHolder « talk » 03:42, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"In the case of the true lemurs, the diploid number ranges from 2n=48 to 2n=60 while the individual chromosome sizes vary considerably"—why are true lemurs mentioned here, as opposed to other groups that have been studied karyologically?
At the time, I did not have access to Tattersall's volume, and I believe none of my other sources at the time mentioned the karyotypes of each lemur species/genus/family. Basically, I was restricted to one source, and that was the information it provided. Now that I have more information, should I cover it more in-depth? Or would a table suffice? – VisionHolder « talk » 03:42, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This occurs in the context of a discussion of species-level taxonomy, so I think you'd best give examples where karyology helped in determining taxonomy. I think that occurred in Lepilemur principally, perhaps also in other genera. Ucucha 12:40, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't quite sure how to add this, plus most karyotype studies are buried in other molecular studies, so it would take a lot of digging through the research to see which ones used it. I've added an example to that paragraph. Let me know if that's good, and if not, I can do some more looking around. – VisionHolder « talk » 16:51, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"By far the most explosive growth in species numbers"—depends on how you define "explosive growth", but compared to 1994, species number in Avahi has increased more in relative terms (4.5x) than in Lepilemur (3.7x). Microcebus and Lepilemur do of course have the largest absolute increases.
I have mentioned that is was in terms of absolute numbers. Feel free to re-word if you see the need. – VisionHolder « talk » 03:42, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ucucha 20:42, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think you have room for a bit more illustration with some pictures of nice lemurs. Ucucha 20:49, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I will definitely add some more pictures once I have the cladograms done. – VisionHolder « talk » 16:51, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your fixes; I will now pass the article. Ucucha 13:59, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]