Talk:Polistes erythrocephalus

Final Notes
Great job on your article! I really enjoyed how complete your analysis is; the hard work you put into this project shows. Particularly, I think the organization of your article is outstanding with every sub-heading relating directly to the overarching heading. When I went through your article, I made several small grammatical changes, though overall the flow of the article worked very well. While your article is already impressive, I do think there are several things you can do to improve it and potentially get it recognized as a good status. First, I think it might be beneficial to define more terms throughout your article. While we might know what terms like “sexual dimorphism” and “thorax” is, the average Wikipedia user might not. Adding definitions for these terms could help the readability of your article. Also I think it would be useful to add more detail to your distribution and habitat section. While you explain where the species is found geographically, I think your article would benefit from a discussion on the environmental conditions P. erythrocephalus thrives in. For instance, does the species prefer woodland or prairie? Does the species generally live in urban or rural settings? Answering these questions could help give the reader a clearer picture of where your species live. I hope that these suggestions help you improve your article even more. Excellent work overall! Amanda.Kalupa (talk) 20:23, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Peer Review
Overall, this is an intriguing article that represents a solid introduction to the P. erythrocephalus. A highlight of this article was definitely the well-explored “colony cycle” section. I fixed several grammatical and spelling errors. In addition I reworded a few sentences to make the writing more clear. In other areas I made some general terms more specific. I also changed some past tense to present tense to maintain a consistent tense throughout the article.

As the person who wrote the page for Polistes canadensis, I find it fascinating that Polistes erythrocephalus was originally classified under Polistes canadensis. It would be helpful to clarify in the taxonomy and phylogeny section why Polistes erythrocephalus has now been recognized as a separate species (is there more to this distinction than just their differences in physical appearance?). Also within the “description and identification” section, it states that Polistes erythrocephalus is “often confused with Polistes annularis as the two are practically indistinguishable.” There should be some clarification as to if these two species are “practically indistinguishable”, why aren’t the two classified as the same species (there has to be some differences between the two species and thus cannot be “practically indistinguishable”)?

I would also beware of redundancy across sections. In both the “Nests” section and the “Distribution and Habitat” section, the phrase, “build nests include under the eaves of roofs, under the wood of basement floors, in barns/stables, under bridges, and in solitary trees” is included in both. Consider deleting one of them.

Within the “Caste Importance” section, it states, “when an active queen is removed and a former inactive queen is substituted the brood will decline”. Is there a reason why when another queen is substituted in for the previous active queen that the brood still declines? Is the newly substituted queen not as effective at maintaining the brood for some reason? Perhaps this thought could be better explored to improve clarity of thought.

You mention that P.erythrocephalus are often attacked by army ants. It would be interesting to look into including a section about how these wasps defend themselves from these attacks. The Polistes canadensis have been found to emit a chemical alarm substance in response to predation. As such a close relative to the Polistes canadensis, the P. erythrocephalus may also have similar defense mechanisms. Although, when examining the article, “Attacks by the Army Ant Eciton burchelli on Nests of the Social Paper Wasp Polistes erythrocephalus in Northeastern Costa Rica” by Young, Young states that “adult wasps were unsuccessful in defending nests against attacks.” It would be beneficial to look into what differences between the defense mechanisms between the Polistes canadensis and P. erythrocephalus exist. Diana He (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Peer Review
Overall this article was very well written and interesting. I went through and did some minor rewording of a few sections and the overview. I also fixed a couple of grammatical things, added an explanation for eclosed, and got rid of references that were used multiple times in a row so it was just cited once at the end. I added links to tarsi, Heliconia, Pupa, Eciton burchellii, Entomophagy and removed one that did not have a wiki page. The only suggestions I have are that if possible you should add a distribution map and a common name to the overview (if this species has one). It would also be good to add a reference for the synonym in the right hand box. Ashleyearley (talk) 16:57, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Peer Review
The strength of this article is that is the descriptive information about the four-stage colony cycle exhibited by the P. erythrocephalus species. Each of the four phases was well written. It was interesting that the foundress waits for other females to join the nest, and if they do not come, she abandons the nest. The article could be improved by adding a few additional categories. The first category could describe the division of labor amongst the different roles in the species. While some of this information is include in the colony cycle, a central location would help clarify the information. Another category that would helpful and interesting is how this species defends itself from predators and its defense of the nest. Lastly, a section dedicated to nests, giving information about nest sharing, founding, and nest discrimination would improve the organization of the article. Kevin.george1 (talk) 04:10, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Minor Edits
This is a well written, very informative article. There is a large amount of information presented, and I learned a great deal. Under Sexual dimorphism, I noticed you used "In addition" and "Additionally" as sentence starters quiet close to each other; I would recommend changing one of them to give the paragraph some diversity. Also, under Nests and Distribution and habitat, you use the same sentence referring to the location of their nests. I added a period after "P" under Colony Cycle. For Predation, is there any information on how they defend themselves from predators? Or do they have no way of defending themselves against army ants? Setoiris (talk) 02:36, 23 October 2014 (UTC)