Talk:Biogeography of paravian dinosaurs

Comment from Ariel
Hi Jac, Nice and well-structured page, contents are very easy to follow, sections are coherent with each other. I like how you add a summary and mention about limitations in particular!

Some suggestions in terms of enriching the contents (since your existing parts are great and don't really need improvement):
 * For the paleobiogeography part, maybe explain a little bit more about the geological processes e.g. the cause of continent configurations in different periods.
 * Add a section on evolutionary mechanisms related to global/ geological processes, e.g. continental break-up or individual episodes of long-distance movement. Highlight important species in this clade.
 * And the above point leads to......adding a section to introduce the endemic areas of some important species in this clade.

Message from Tommy
Makhkugeo (talk) 18:18, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
 * The article is well-organized.
 * It would be great to explore more about the importance in studying biogeography of paravian dinosaurs. Perhaps this helps understand how modern birds evolve etc.
 * It would be attractive if you can add several images for the paravian dinosaurs.
 * You present the global distribution of the paravian dinosaurs from time to time, but how about their living habitat? Do we know something about the condition of their habitat?

Comment from Helen
Hi Jac,

The language of your page is easy to understand. I like the tables showing the distribution of each clade, which makes things very clear.

There are some suggestions for you:
 * You may simply write 'North America' and 'Asia' in Fig.2.
 * The dotted lines in Fig. 5 & 6 can be bold.
 * In Fig. 2, the red cross may not necessarily be there because the red arrows have already shown that faunal exchange was nearly impossible.

I like your page :)

--HelenHYW (talk) 17:59, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

comment from Yansytang
Hi Jacqueline,

I like how you explained the concepts of speciation and geodispersal at the beginning. It helps me understand the following section easily :)

I suggest:
 * bolding the first few words in the introduction: The biogeography of paravian dinosaurs
 * you may talk about why it is interesting or important to understand the biogeography of paraves in the introduction
 * vicariance can be linked when it first appears on the page, not in later section of "Middle Jurassic"
 * typo of "Antarctica" in the caption of Fig. 3
 * the legend of Fig. 4 should include the red line
 * combining the tables into one, which summarises distribution of clades from Late Jurassic to Cretaceous, if that's possible. I find myself trying to compare the distribution between the time periods.

Yansytang (talk) 10:12, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Comment from Kenwongtk
It is well-explained with smooth English and organisation. Suggestions are as follows: 1. Typo in Fig 3: "Antarctica" 2. Combining three tables into one so that it is easier to compare by not scrolling up and down. So my suggestion would be use "tick", "cross", and "circle" representing three stages. 3. It is very informative and yet maybe some terms are too technical. External Links are good, but sometimes one to two simple sentences explaining the terms would be better. Kenwongtk (talk) 15:33, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Recommendation from Abraham:
--AMLSIU (talk) 14:00, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
 * 1) The explanations of speciation and geodispersal are clear enough but you may use a simple illustration to describe these two processes. It can give quick and easy access to the concepts.
 * 2) Maybe it is better to keep the sentences short.
 * 3) Fig. 1 is very clear to explain their relationship but you may add their image in the cladogram to capture readers' attention.

The article seems like a flawed concept
I don't mean to be to rude, but I am questioning the rationale behind the creation of this article. It looks to be mainly focused around the distribution of various paravian families within the late Mesozoic, but there are some fundamental issues with that rationale. The most prominent is the lack of resolution surrounding paravian classification. The original version of the article was under the impression that Paraves consisted solely of Avialae and Deinonychosauria (Dromaeosauridae + Troodontidae). However, there are many classification schemes where troodontids are closer to Avialae than they are to Dromaeosauridae. In addition, we have to consider anchiornithids, which may or may not be a clade, may or may not be troodontids, and may or may not be avialans. And there's also scansoriopterygids, which are even more unstable in their classification. And of course, the Hesperornithoides paper (which was curiously not originally cited despite its importance) completely scrambles paravian phylogeny despite not yet being consensus. The list goes on: Balaur, Rahonavis, Nuthetes, the antarctic "dromaeosaur" are all difficult to place into any one group.

Another issue is that the article reads as if it has a lot of original research. Its conclusions on biogeography feel like it is synthesized primarily from geographical data for certain groups without much scrutiny for their relations. As a result, it generally draws its conclusions independently of the papers being cited. The most cited source, Ding et al.'s " "The Biogeography of Coelurosaurian Theropods and its Impact on their Evolutionary History" (2019) estimated that dromaeosaurids originated in Asia while this article claims they originated in North America and Europe using a few unsubtantiated 20-year old papers on teeth. Meanwhile, the decision to classify anchiornithids as troodontids shifts the origin of Avialae to Europe, in contrast to other papers on the topic. Basically, there is a lot of work that needs to be done. Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 14:47, 9 January 2020 (UTC)