User:Jam7887/sandbox

Article Evaluation

Pharyngeal slit Content gap in basic information about function and purpose of the pharyngeal gill slits. The sections about pharyngeal arches and evolution are detailed, but could be more impactful if the structure was better explained and understood on a functional level.Some points that would be useful if added:

• description of pathway from pharyngeal slits through the body
• explained importance of filter feeding for the survival of the organism
• purpose of pharyngeal slit/filter feeding for nutrition and respiration
• mechanism of pharyngeal slit and other related structures

Sources There are a lot of citations in the article and they appear to all be from reliable sources. One source is from 1977, which is somewhat outdated, but all other sources are recent.

Superfluous information The beginning paragraph of the article is slightly confusing and seems disorganized. Some of the information is vague and could be explained in better detail. The section seems to be random facts that do not fit into the other two paragraphs that the author thought were still important to mention.

Add to an Article

Pharyngeal slit source number 3 is cited improperly.

In the online version of the journal article, it says this is how the article should be cited:

Ezhova OV, Malakhov VV. 2015. The nephridial hypothesis of the gill slit origin. J. Exp. Zool. (Mol. Dev. Evol.) 324B:647 –652.

Here is the reference I came up with using the information from the source and the citation generator:

Ezhova, OV; Malakhov, VV (2015). "The nephridial hypothesis of the gill slit origin". J. Exp. Zool. (Mol. Dev. Evol.). 324B: 647–652.

Week 4 Assignment-- Dissection Group

Organisms:

1. Rabbit; I am intrigued by the morphology of the rabbit vertebral column and I would like to be able to compare the human anatomy to that of the rabbit and see what ways the difference in curvature of their spine has on their biomechanics and other physiological processes. Rabbit does not mention anything about the morphology of the rabbit spine or vertebrae.

2. Skate; On the Wikipedia page for the skate plus further research I did, it looks like the skate has an electric organ as protection in contrast to the ray, which has a tail with spikes. This is a concept I have never learned about and I would like to be able to more research to add to Wikipedia. The other page I used to gain more information on the Skate was Electric organ (biology).

3. Stingray; I was surprised to read that the stingray gives live birth while the skate, which is very similar, lays eggs. I want to understand what biological stressors caused the stingray to evolve into giving live birth while the skate did not. Stingray Reproduction section.

Week 5 Assignment-- Outline

Articles to possibly edit: Skate (fish) or Electric organ (biology)

Main team goal: we all want to pick a specific topic to research and find more information onto the Skate (fish) page about each topic. We think the page is, overall, vague and could use more detail on many important topics within the article.

Skate (fish)

I will add to section with heading titled Anatomy and physiology; create subheading called Defense and elaborate on the electric organ that skates have. The article I got the idea from was Electric organ (biology). I might also do some adding to this page as well if I find more information that is good for it. Things that will be added to the Skate page about the electric organ include:

• physiology of the electric organ
• purpose/importance of having it
• morphology
• possibly a bit of information regarding the evolution of the electric organ

From this reading, it sounds like the electric organ in the skate is used only for communication, because the discharges of their electric organs are weak and do not do anything to protect them from predators. This would cause me to change the subheading from Defense to something else like Communication. Either way, this article has a lot of good information.

Week 6 Assignment-- media & draft 2

Mckenna and I have decided to work on the anatomy of the skate together. She will focus on the external anatomy and I will focus on the internal anatomy. Kasey is researching reproduction which will tie into both internal and external anatomy. Mckenna and I will be adding to the "Anatomy" section of the Skate page and creating out own subheadings, while Kasey will be adding to the "Reproduction" section.

Although I am still very interested in the electric organ of the skate, there is not very much information out there, specifically pertaining to the skate, that I can add to the article. Consequently, I am going to look for more aspects of the internal anatomy to talk about as well.

Media

As a group we decided to look for images online that are like cartoons or diagrams that label drawings of the skate as a reference point for readers to look at.

Then, we will take some of our own pictures once we start dissecting the skate in lab and add those to supplement the drawings.

[1]This website has some cool pictures and descriptions of skates and rays. The pictures on this site cannot be used on Wikipedia because the copyright says commercial use is strictly prohibited, but the information is still good!

Week 7 Peer Review

Stingray

The topics that each person plans to add to on the Stingray page is very clear and organized. Although the topics of research are clear, the article being analyzed and edited is not linked in the sandbox and is difficult to find, since there are many stingray pages. I would suggest putting a link to the article under the Week 6 heading.

There are many sources being referenced in the sandbox, but most of them are not done the way they are supposed to be done for the final draft of the article. I would suggest practicing putting the citations in with the links so they all show up at the bottom of the page in a reference list.

I like the picture ideas that some of the group members have proposed to take during dissection in lab, especially because each person has listed specific structures they plan to dissect from the stingray to capture images for. These will be great supplementation to the information described. Nathan, I think it would be a good idea to find a picture of a stingray skeleton to use for depicting your description of the fins and how they move. People may find it easier to understand the stingray locomotion if they can picture how the internal parts are moving and what they look like.

Azana, there are some spelling and grammatical errors in your draft that can be easily fixed!

Derek, the information in your draft is great! However, I think the heading is somewhat misleading. Although you do talk about the spiracle in the paragraph, the theme for the whole piece seems to be more about respiration than the spiracle itself.

Microbat

Hey there. Some things I saw when reading through your draft:

It does not seem that your group has formed a draft of the pictures you plan to add to your article. I suggest looking for already approved pictures on Wikimedia to add to your article that are relevant to the sections you have chosen to talk about. If you do not find any images already on Wikimedia that would work, think about some pictures you can take yourself once you start dissecting.

Another thing I noticed was that most of the citations in your drafts are only on the last sentences of the paragraphs. I would advise being cautious of citation usage and make sure you are citing each sentence that contains information/knowledge that is not your own.

It is also slightly unclear to me whether you are all planning on editing the same article, or if you have chosen separate ones based on your topic. Although either option is acceptable, it would be helpful if each group member had the links to their article of choice somewhere in their drafts for clarity.

Overall, the content is neutral and the sources used appear to be reliable. Try to focus on communicating between each other and drafting an overall plan of how each group member's contributions will impact the rest of the group or how you can work together on certain aspects of this project.

Feedback Responses (Week 9)

Mckenna and I are both interested in looking at the general anatomy of the skate and finding specific topics we can elaborate on, but it seems like we have divided it into internal and external anatomy. Most of her focus will be on the external anatomy and mine will be on the internal anatomy. I am looking for videos to see if it is possible to dissect out the electric organs of the skate and I would like to attempt to do that and take pictures for our Wikipedia page, but I am not sure if that is possible. I also found a skate dissection video where they were looking at the the internal organs of the skate and it was pointed out that the stake has two separate stomachs. I would like to research more information about that as well.

I think it is a good idea for us to dissect the brain of the skate as well, but there is not really a good spot to add information onto the Skate (fish) page, but it could be cool to dissect and take pictures for the Rajiformes page, since we have access to a shark brain as well. Also, we have a female skate and we are very eager to see if we can find a mermaid's purse when we dissect, however, we have not spoken to the stingray group so we should see if they have a male that we can take pictures of the claspers on. The comparison between male and female reproductive anatomy (external) could also be something that is added to the Skate and the Rajiformes page.

For my section, I think it was a good idea to look for more information on other organisms that have similar EOs to that of the skate and try to gain more information by studying those species. I will do that this week before we make our second draft as a group. As for the comment about moving the anatomy section, I think it was more of a misunderstanding. We do not plan on having the anatomy section under reproduction, it was simply that Kasey added his information first to the sandbox and he was focusing on that topic. We are simply adding to the existing topics with the corresponding headings to those we used in the sandbox.

Week 10 Assignment-- Draft 2

Electric organ

The electric organ (EO) is a characteristic exclusive to fish. Among the Chondrichthyes, the only species to posses electric organs are the electric rays and the skates. Unlike many other electrogenic fishes, the skate is unique in that it has two paired electric organs, which run longitudinally along the tail in the lateral musculature of the vertebral column. The impulses put out by the electric organs of the skate are considered to be weak, asynchronous, long-lasting signals. Although the anatomy of the Skate EO is now commonly studied and well understood, there is not enough strong evidence to suggest what the actual function of the EO is. Some research suggests the electric impulses are too weak to be a mechanism used for defense or hunting, and it is also too irregular to be useful for electrolocation purposes. The most reasonable explanation in the literature suggests that the electric organ discharges may be used as a form of communication.

Dorsal view of a female skate.

Ventral view of a female skate.

Female skate dissection exposing organs held within the body cavity.

Photo gallery

The fibers of the skate electric organ are embedded in the muscles located lateral to the notochord in the tail.

Schutz Feedback Draft 2

Give size of mermaids purse (cm)

Draw on skate for EO

Add brain/nervous system section to Chondrichthyes page and take photo of skate brain and compare to shark brain (lab)

Final Edits/Ideas

We should add a sentence or two in the Skate (fish) Taxonomy section about it being a Chondrichthyes and then it is tied to the work Kasey did on the page.

Should we try to add the dissection photos back into the photo gallery?

The skate belongs to the class Chondrichthyes. This class consists of all the cartilaginous fishes, including sharks and sting rays. Chondrichthyes is divided into two subclasses, the one including skates, rays, and shark is is the subclass Elasmobranchii.