Talk:Polistes japonicus

Peer Review
I corrected several grammar and spelling errors found throughout the article. I reworded several sentences to make them clearer. I fixed several plural and singular inconsistencies throughout the article. While the article features some quality behavior sections, some sections are lacking in content (rather brief), and I have provided some suggestions for adding to these sections.

The taxonomy and phylogeny section should be expanded on to include more information on the relatives of the Polistes japonicus to provide more understanding about where the Polistes japonicus falls in its evolutionary relationships. By doing some research, I found in the article “A Phylogenetic Perspective on Sequence Evolution in Microsatellite Loci” by Zhu, Queller, and Strassmann, that Polistes japonicus can be found in the Polistella subfamily within Pollistini, and one of its relatives within this subfamily is the Polistes snelleni. This could prove to be a useful addition to the taxonomy and phylogeny section.

Within the “nest” section, you state that the nests are “paper nests”. You might want to clarify in more detail what this entails. Does this mean that these nests are made of paper? Or are they made of plant and wood fibers that look like paper mache like those of other Polistes wasps?

Within the “distribution and habitat” section, you discuss the geographic distribution of the Polistes japonicus, but it may be useful to attempt to expand on this section as it currently only consists of two sentences. For example, it would be useful to discuss the habitats in which they can be found (found only in nature or also in urban areas?). When conducting some research to in regards to the distribution of this species, I found in the article “The Social Wasps (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) of Taiwan” by Starr that Polistes japonicus can be found throughout Taiwan at low and medium elevations and at many localities. Polistes japonicus also appears to be the most common Polistes in Taiwan and is one of the only two paper wasps definitely found on Orchid Island. Also interestingly is that there is considerable color variation in this species within Taiwan, which can be reduced to three main characters. These can be useful facts to consider including within your article.

In the “dominance hierarchy” section, you mention a “first-brood period” and a “mixed brood period”. It may also be useful to define what these periods are and what differences between these two periods there are. Diana He (talk) 22:59, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

One area where I think your article could be improved is the introduction. Creating the intro to be more representative of the article will help the reader to understand what is contained within the page without having to search for it. In addition, I added some internal links to the page and a photo of the wasp. Finally, I corrected grammar errors that I saw while reading the page. Many of my corrections were changing passive voice to active voice. Dkrinock (talk) 22:59, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Comments
First, I added several internal links in the article so that it would get more views. Increasing the amount of views, especially from interested readers who have valuable expertise in the subject of wasps, would improve the quality and accuracy of the page. For example, I added a link to Polistes so that anyone interested in studying wasps of this genus would be directed to this page and can then contribute. However, some words cannot be linked to pages that would describe their meaning, such as extranidal and intranidal in the Division of Labor subsection. It might be helpful to either find a page that would most closely define these terms or include a brief definition of the respective terms and the associated tasks that a P. japonicas worker would be responsible to complete.

The Behavior section overall is very descriptive and well organized. Each subsection appears to have an appropriate length and number of citations. Because of this, readers are allowed to get an adequate background on the specific aspects of the behavior of P. japonicas and be able to do further research by reading the articles that were cited. For the Taxonomy and Phylogeny section, I would recommend including more information on the categories that P. japonicas falls within. For example, including information on a phylogenetic tree that showed the species to which P. japonicas is most closely related could help the readers put this specific species into a broader context of Polistes in general or species of this genus that are found in similar areas. One comment for the Nest subsection of Description and Identification is that it would be beneficial to describe the type of material that P. japonicas uses for its nests, as “paper nests” not very descriptive or specific. If a particular plant or part of a plant is typically used, then that information will illuminate the types of interactions with other species are found in P. japonicas.

Overall, this is a good article! Good job! Sydney Joyner (talk) 02:42, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Overview
The overview was very concise and had some interesting information, but I think adding more general information about the species could be very helpful. For example, a basic morphology of the species (color and size?) and a brief information on its colony cycle / aggressive behaviors would also make it a more interesting introduction.

Description and Identification
Some information seems to be lacking specifics; none of the sizes of the species (females, males, queen, workers) are mentioned, and the nest is also only mentioned as "small", but with no exact measurements. It would be nice to have access to those information.

Dominance hierarchy
This information about P.japonicus was very interesting! I think, however, if there was some more detailed explanations on certain subjects such as "mixed brood" or "first-brood", it would make the entire information much clearer. It also raised a question of "how many brood cycles are there?"

Division of labor
I think you could elaborate on what "extranidal" and "intranidal" tasks are, and why the importance of such difference in labor.

Worker VS. Queen conflict
Similarly to the 'Division of Labor' category, it would be really nice if there was additional information on how the "oviposition" impacts the social wasps. What is the purpose of ovipositioning and how does that benefit the queen/workers?

Overall, the information was very interesting, especially the human importance part! Other than some missing explanations, the article gives well-written, clear and organized information about P. japonicus. Well done! Dwjoanne (talk) 23:49, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Suggestions
I enjoyed reading about the Behavior section, which contained a great deal of interesting information. I would suggest adding more to your overview (maybe just one or two more sentences) and editing your Nest section. The sentences are a bit awkward and choppy; the last sentence is especially short so maybe it could be combined. You could say "Their nests are small, one-tiered, open faced paper nests consisting of 40-80 cells." Under Phylogeny, I would recommend finding an article by James M. Carpenter to find what other species Polistes japonicus is closely related to. Setoiris (talk) 00:32, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Peer Review
Really good article. I really like the picture that you have on the page. I just made a variety of minor grammar changes throughout, and I also cut out a few extraneous words. One of the main things I changed was combining your first sentence in the overview with your main overview paragraph. I think that this provides the same information in a much more concise manner. I would also recommend expanding your overview paragraph so that it is a stand alone summary of your article. This would bring your work a little bit closer to good article status. If possible, I think that the description and identification section, as well as the distribution section could use some expansion, but I understand if there is not a lot of information in the literature about this. Finally, do you mean to say ‘stringing’ in the aggressive behaviors section, or ‘stinging’? My last suggestion would be explaining what “in sole and crude forms” means in your human importance section. Overall a really good and informative article! Kirinne (talk) 04:27, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Hey great article! But I think in your division of labor section you should better differentiate where exactly you talk about each position in the nest. Its hard to read through the entire paragraph especially if I am only looking for information on what one wasp in the nest does.

Some Suggestions
This is a well written and interesting article. However, I do have a few suggestions to help it reach Good Article status. Firstly, I would add some pictures throughout the page to make it more visually pleasing. Additionally, the introduction section as well as the Taxonomy and Phylogyny, Description and Identification, Nests and Distribution and Habitat sections are a little short and could be expanded on to make the page better. A picture would be especially helpful in the description and identification section. Other than these sections, the information presented about your wasp is very thorough and interesting to read. Thanks for posting this article. Tgalosher (talk) 23:03, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

primitively eusocial
They are primitively eusocial wasps. This needs just a few words in a phrase, to accommodate the reader, to make clear what is distinctly primitivein their eusociality? The fuller explication will follow, but keep the reader on track.--Wetman (talk) 20:26, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Class Critique Assignment
I was interested to read that there is no morphological difference between the workers and younger reproductive females in this species, which only changes when the males grow older. While there is a topic on dominance hierarchy, the article does not expand much on the role of the foundress, who is the highest ranked member of the colony. An explanation of the foundress’ role and development could help to understand the social interactions within the species. As discussed in the colony cycle section of this article. these wasps do not all make it through the winter, so a section on development and reproduction may have provided further insight on how this species may adapt to survive cold weather. Overall this was a well written article and I found it to be very insightful.

Paanur (talk) 20:02, 10 September 2015 (UTC)Paanur