Talk:Ropalidia fasciata

Very good article. I added a few sentences, one in your Taxonomy and Phylogeny section and one in your Colony Cycle section. I also added a few more links to your article and changed a few writing errors. Katieortman 10:53, 30 September 2014

Some Suggestions
This article is very strong. Particularly, I felt that your categories were well researched and provided useful and interesting facts about Ropalidia fasciata. While there was not many grammatical changes to be made, I corrected a couple spelling mistakes and combined some shorter sentences throughout to make the article flow better. I also have several additional suggestions. Firstly, I think that you could alter your writing to be less hesitant and more direct. Since you have researched a lot of information on this wasp, you have the authority to make direct fact statement on the species. For instance, instead of saying that "Reproductive suppression does not appear to be a major part.." simply make a direct statement that "reproductive suppression is no a major part..". By changing your writing style to be more direct throughout the article, I believe that your article will appear more credible and have more authority. Another suggestion I have is to increase your discussion about relatedness between individuals in the colony. As you stated in your introduction, the colony does not operate on a single queen system, skewing the typical sex ratios. This should result in some interesting intra-species dynamics. Therefore, under kin selections I suggest adding a sections on relatedness and worker-queen policing to explain how the colony chooses it's queen and why individuals seem to still exhibit altruistic behavior within the nest. Finally, I also think it would be a good idea to elaborate more on what a "foundress" is. Are they just the emigrants from the old colony or are they the first queens of the new colony? Overall, this article is already complete and useful. I hope by implementing my suggestions your article ca be made even better. Amanda.Kalupa (talk) 7:12, 1 October 2014 (UTC)Amanda.Kalupa

General Feedback
Overall your article was well researched and well written. I went through and linked some of your key words to other articles in order to get more traffic flow on your page. A agree with the comments made above and also noticed other sections could use more detail if the research is available. For example, under the Taxonomy and Phylogeny section you mentioned that R. Fasciata is often confused with R. marginata. Based on this information I think adding a subsection under Description and Identification about differentiating between these two species would be helpful. Similarly, under Description and Identification adding information about what behavioral differences help identify Queens and workers would be nice. Colony Cycle had a lot of great information, however, it would also be useful to add a numerical estimate for the number of wasps per colony. Under interaction with Other Species more description of what ichneuemonid parasite does to R. fasciata nests would also be useful. Adding a geographical distribution and graphic map under Distribution and Habitat (or in the Taxabox) would also add good detail to the article. Finally, I think a section about how R. fasciata interact with humans would be very useful to make the species more accessible to readers. Providing information about their stings or aggression are possible subjects you could cover in such a section. Great job with the article and I hope my suggestions help!

Akinjenn (talk) 01:15, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Further suggestions
This article seems to be comprehensive and well researched. That being said, I think you should take a look at the first 3 sections again, and add some more information here. The sections about description, habitat, and so on do not give the reader enough information. If you cannot find more information, I would consider adding them together to make the page look better and not as if it is lacking information. Jamiehalpern (talk) 19:34, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Even More Suggestions
I thought this article was well done. Personally, I believe that the Behavior section is incredibly well fleshed-out and informative on a lot of fronts. I enjoyed reading about how R. fasciata can behave as either a monogynous or polygnous species depending on the situation. I made a few minor changes related to grammar and sentence structure. Most of my improvement suggestions for this article revolve around content addition so that your other sections may parallel the detail and breadth that your Behavior section contains. For example, it would be very interesting to hear a little bit more about the Ropalidia genus, since it is so wide in scope and contains many species. Also, it would be interesting to hear about some of the consequences that arise due to the lack of high relatedness among this species, other than increased competition. Finally, I was wondering if there is any significance to the fact that their habitats are invaded with Miscanthus sinen, as this language implies that this might not necessarily be a good thing. With a few more content additions, this article would be more than qualified to be a Good Article, and one could argue that it is qualified at this point. Very nice job! RJPet (talk) 03:33, 21 November 2014 (UTC)