Talk:Vespula squamosa

	Insects portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Insects, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of insects on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.InsectsWikipedia:WikiProject InsectsTemplate:WikiProject InsectsInsects articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by Hymenoptera task force (assessed as Mid-importance).

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.
You can help with this article:

The article should contain links to other articles, integrating with the encyclopedia.

Peer review 1

This article was well written and contained a wealth of information. Aside from a few grammatical errors, the main changes I made involved the format of the article. I moved some of the sections that were more related to each other together and added some larger headings over others, such as that of the Mating Behavior heading over the Mating Systems and Mating of the Queen subheadings and Interactions with Other Species over Diet and Parasitic Relationships. I also moved the Nest section to be under the Distribution and Habitat section. I would suggest that maybe some other sections be added, possibly related to that of kin selection, but I thought the article included a great overview and thought it was a job well done. Yangjennyh (talk) 21:46, 29 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Peer Review 2

Overall, this is a pretty comprehensive article. I like how in the description and identification section you included very specific information about how this wasps differs from other similar looking species. The information you provided about nests was also helpful to picture this species in its natural habitat. Your wasp is unique because it is parasitic in nature, and you did a good job highlighting these differences, especially in the colony cycle section. I liked how you included information on the alarm pheromones that this species has in order to communicate. This seemed to be another unique quality of this species and you cited several articles about this behavior. While this section could have been more thorough considering the amount of information you found on it, I believe you did a good job condensing the large amount of information available on this subject. There seemed to be a good amount of information about overwintering colonies available. I found an article called “Two Polygynous Overwintered Vespula squamosa Colonies from the Southeastern U.S.” I feel like if you were to expand your article further overwintering behaviors could be discussed. To a large extent, this article is well written and well cited. I think you did a great job! I went through and corrected some grammar mistakes too. Probertsg (talk) 22:15, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Peer Review

This article included interesting facts, presented in an academic and well-written fashion. The research seems to be thorough with sound research. In terms of formatting, I went through the article and italicized genera and species mentioned. In addition, I added links to other Wikipedia pages for certain key words and phrases. Writing-wise, I felt like there were a couple sentences that had awkward wording that you may want to consider revising. I have listed the sentences below (with their respective sections). I did not physically change these sentences within the article itself because the overall, the writing still makes sense and perhaps my revision would lose some of the information the author was trying to relay. I went a head and made a couple of grammar mistake changes though, specifically in the ‘Sexual Dimorphism’ and ‘Mating of the Queen’ sections. Content-wise, the article was great, except for I was slightly confused with the ‘Defense and Alarm Signals’ section because at first, the section mentions that the venom glands are in the stomach, but then says that another study suggested that the pheromones maybe applied by the mandible. Perhaps, this section could use a bit more organization and research. Overall, a job well done, especially in mentioning key, unique characteristics of V. squamosa such as its parasitic nature and venomous sting.

Sentences to consider revising: 1. Overview: Vespula squamosa are considered social, parasitic insects, and they have a parasitic relationship with the species Vespula vidua and Vespula maculifrons. 2. Mating of the Queen section: This is significant because in a eusocial species, which Vespula squamosa is, the queen is the reproductive female for the nest.

Sandyamuchimilli (talk) 04:01, 3 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wash U Review: Last Round of Reviews!

This article had a ton of information and was sectioned really well. I took out a few extra spaces that you had between sections, and I also fixed your overwintering section, which for some reason was on the pre formatting instead of paragraph format, so I changed it to paragraph. In addition, I added a couple of in text pictures to illustrate things you referred to in your text, and to add to the content of the page. This should bring the page up to good quality. Awesome job! Atkarp (talk) 00:39, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]