User:K.Lip/sandbox

Article Evaluation

The Wikipedia article which is being evaluated here is the flehmen response. Throughout the article everything seemed concise with the topic. However, at the end there is a subheading " Similar responses'; this section did not add anything to the article topic. It was more of a "fun fact" which the article would be fine with or without it being there. The article does a great job at keeping non-biased and giving the reader a lot of different information on the flehming response. It does not persuade the reader into thinking there is only one stimuli to cause this response. The article gives enough details in each section for the reader to get a good general idea of this behaviour. There are some sections which would be nice to have a bit more detail, for example "mammals exhibiting flehmen"; however, finding the resources for this can be challenging which is understandable. When referring to the references some of the links are broken and will give you an error page or a page which is the home page of the website not the original post that this article is referring to. The links of the references that do work can be confirmed that they do support the subject when cited. Some sources also seem more reliable than others (targeted towards one species), but this article does a good job at not making one animal the main topic. It does recognize other species which does this behaviour. Looking at when some of the references are published, majority are within the last 10 years, however there are a few which are over 10 years old which could be outdated by now. It would perhaps be beneficial to check to see if there are any newer findings on this topic which could be added or supplement what is already expressed in the article.

In the talk section one users mentions there are some non-mammals that may exhibit this flehming behaviour. Another user mentions what was mentioned above, if including the " similar response" subheading is necessary. Other users express concern if some pictures are representing what flehming looks like in certain animals.

The article is rated as a c-class on the quality scale and low importance.

Possible article topics

Some possible article topics which is of interest:

Tail wagging by dogs - Which is a stub article that I can make additions to. What I could add to the article:

The important of the tail for when dogs are defensive. How the positioning is important. How wagging behaviour is important for understanding the dogs emotions.Tail wagging is not only important in dogs but in wolfs as well to indicate it is not threatening a dominant male. The speed of the tail wagging and the height of the tail also helps read the feelings of the dog. Adding more pictures to let the reader better understand the tail positioning and the meanings. Give greater detail in the differences of tail wagging.

Body language of dogs- Another stub article. Describing the different poses of dogs which one can read its body language.Position of tail and what may be associated with it. Could add more detail in each given section of how the posture, ear direction and tail indicates the dogs emotions. Also the importance of reading the whole body language and not just a particular section of the dog.

Egg tossing (behaviour)- Can give more examples of which birds do this behaviour as well as those brood parasitic species. Add what the reasoning may be for communal breeding. The benefits of doing egg tossing behaviour and the disadvantages. https://academic.oup.com/beheco/article/11/3/334/229784/Evolutionary-routes-to-joint-female-nesting-in

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347208001371?via%3Dihub

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347280800686

Chosen Topic

Egg tossing (behaviour) will be the article I will add information to. This stub article already gives small detail about this behaviour. What could be added to this article are the reasons why some birds do this behaviour, how egg tossing may be prevented in some species, if the males are the ones who will incubate the eggs and not females. What groups this behaviour is usually osbserved in and how this behaviour may affect the amount of offspring that survive. Will also discuss that this is not only a common practice in communal breeding species but in brood parasites and can give some examples.

Bibliography :

Brown, Charles R.; Brown, Mary Bomberger (1988). "The Costs and Benefits of Egg Destruction by Conspecifics in Colonial Cliff Swallows". The Auk. 105(4): 737–748. doi:10.2307/4087387. http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4087387.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A874b9f0e42671dde8885412f88d5efcf

Craig, John L. (1980-05-01). "Pair and group breeding behaviour of a communal gallinule, the pukeko, Porphyrio P. Melanotus". Animal Behaviour. 28 (2): 593–603. doi:10.1016/S0003-3472(80)80068-6. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347280800686

"Cooperative Breeding". web.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2017-10-02. https://web.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/Cooperative_Breeding.html

Koenig, Walter D.; Dickinson, Janis L. (2004-04-22). Ecology and Evolution of Cooperative Breeding in Birds. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521530996. https://books.google.ca/books?id=wz93GCISCWMC&pg=PA190&lpg=PA190&dq=egg+tossing+in+birds&source=bl&ots=qeYmd3XUsC&sig=PrroSXbFCtLdD9Do0tnxaNB5CyQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiW47bD9NHWAhXJZCYKHSCeAg8Q6AEIXzAM#v=onepage&q=egg%20tossing%20in%20birds&f=false

Schmaltz, Gregory; Quinn, James S.; Lentz, Cindy (2008-07-01). "Competition and waste in the communally breeding smooth-billed ani: effects of group size on egg-laying behaviour". Animal Behaviour. 76(1): 153–162. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2007.12.018.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347208001371?via%3Dihub

Vehrencamp, Sandra L. (2000-05-01). "Evolutionary routes to joint-female nesting in birds". Behavioral Ecology. 11 (3): 334–344. ISSN 1045-2249. doi:10.1093/beheco/11.3.334. https://academic.oup.com/beheco/article/11/3/334/229784/Evolutionary-routes-to-joint-female-nesting-in

Improving an existing article/draft

Since the article chosen is a stub page everything present is underrepresented. I would like to add a lot more detail on somethings that are already mentioned and add information that is missing: Adding a better definition of what egg tossing behaviour is, giving examples of species that do this that are not brood parasites. Adding examples of the benefits or consequences of a specific specie. Adding why communal breeding does occur and why it may promote egg tossing behaviour. A small section of brood parasitism will be added, but will not be expanded on since there is already a detailed page on wikipedia.

Everything that is present on the article is relevant to the behaviour, it just lacks content. The references that are used in the article are reliable resources allowing this article to be neutral, some though are from the 1990's and hoping to bring some more recent resources to the page. There is no comments on the talk page besides what I have recently added for suggestions. Overall the article is a good base to get started on but needs some additions to complete this topic. Adding some pictures of the behaviour can make the page more attracting to readers.

Article Draft

Egg tossing (behaviour)

Egg tossing or egg destruction is a behaviour observed in some species of birds where one individual removes an egg from the communal nest; which is related to infanticide. This behaviour is observed in avian species, most commonly the females, who are involved with cooperative breeding or brood parasitism. During co-nesting, before a bird starts laying its own eggs, it tosses out other eggs laid previously by another female. As a result, the last egg-layers may contribute more eggs to the common nest: this increase the chances that newly laid eggs, which are genetically closer to the female, receive a better chance of survival.It was concluded that in some species, egg-tossing is a strategy of clutch coordination: eggs are tossed until all birds in the common nest are ready to proceed with brooding. Preventing early egg-layers from dominating reproduction.

Performing this behaviour will increase the offspring per individual compared to those in single pairs.

Reasons why communal breeding occurs: environmental restrictions, small number of females in the population or vice versa, and reduced resources in the environment.

Species that display this behaviour

Some examples of communal breeders that demonstrate the egg tossing behaviour are: ostriches, grooved-bill anis, acorn woodpeckers, the gray-breasted jay, the guira cuckoo and smoothed-bill anis.

Advantages and disadvantages

Communal breeding, when there are several females in the group have shown that the amount of eggs produced per individual are greater in comparison to single female groups. Reasoning behind this is due to the higher competition between females to have their own eggs be successfully hatched and from the large amount of egg loss.

The acorn woodpecker showed that when in a group of 7-8 individuals, the success rate of reproduction increased, but would decrease is the size of the group increased. Was also observed that when there was two females in the clutch this success would decrease compared to a single female clutch since there is a higher competitive and conflict rate.

In the guira cuckoo up to 7 females share a nest and perform egg tossing behaviour. Eggs that are laid in the early period egg production are more likely to be tossed out of the nest by another female, however this behaviour is observed throughout the period. When the group size increases the egg tossing behaviour does not increase since this behaviour because it is most commonly seen in the early stages of egg laying.

Laying eggs late to prevent their eggs to be tossed can have a negative impact on the offspring. Late egg laying causes later hatching which increases the probability of death. These late chicks will be smaller than their nest mates making it a disadvantage.

Adaptations

In the acorn woodpecker it has been observed that due to the egg destruction behaviour it causes the egg laying to be synchronized between females. This synchronization of egg laying allows for all females to have the same opportunity to have a similar number of eggs in the nest. The larger the communal breeding group is the longer it takes for the synchronization to occur.

Ostriches are usually found in a group of two to seven and there is only one major hen which will incubate the nest with the single male. The female ostriches will lay their eggs at the same time leads to having too many eggs in the nest. The major hen is able to detect which eggs belong to her and will push the other eggs on the perimeter of the nest which is not looked after. This adaption of abandoning these eggs protects the well kept eggs from predation.

Competition varies between species due to their different life history. In the guiro cuckoo it is common for the females to have multiple nests during a breeding season, where as the smooth billed anis, renesting is not commonly seen; causing a higher competition rate to get to the nest.

In the grooved bill anis and in the guira cuckoo, these species will stop tossing eggs once they have started to produce eggs in the nest. This behaviour prevents them from unknowingly toss one of their own eggs out of the nest.

Egg tossing by brood parasites

A slightly different behavior is that of brood parasite birds, such as some species of cuckoos: the cuckoo chick may toss host's eggs and even host's chicks out of the nest.

Another brood parasite that exhibits egg tossing is the cowbird.

Peer Review by mam045

Your article is looking good so far, I look forward to reading the final draft. It's great that you found so many resources on the topic and that they are all from reputable sources. I think that the one of most important part about these articles is organization and how we divide the article up into smaller parts. I like that there is a section on brood parasitism but maybe you could add other sections. For example, reasons for egg tossing, ecological impacts and examples of species that exhibit this behaviour could be possible sub sections. Once you decide on the structure of the article you could incorporate a sentence or two about each of them in the lead section so the reader will know exactly what is to follow. The article seems very neutral which is good, using a lot of resources helps contribute to neutrality. It's also great that you linked words to other wiki articles. This will help the reader to understand egg tossing.

Overall awesome work and I'm excited to read the final draft!