Talk:Siblicide

Inappropriate tone tag
First paragraph uses unclear writing style, abbreviates "siblings" to "sibs", and includes a rhetorical question. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xaajjaax (talk • contribs) 12:07, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Looks like this has been corrected. Anyway the phrase The fact that such a sacrifice occurs indicates an evolutionary tendency in some taxa toward improved vertical gene transmission in families or a higher percentage of the unit in reaching a reproductive age in a resource-limited environment. lacks of punctuation and clarity (to the point of being ununderstandable to me). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.65.232.156 (talk) 04:51, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Lead
You might want to have a look at WP:Lead to see how a lead section should be structured. Ideally they should just be a summary of the rest of the article and there should be no new information that is not already covered in the body of the article. The lead here looks far too long and detailed. It is also one of the requirements of Good articles, so it will need to be addressed before it is passed. Cheers AIR corn (talk) 22:56, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Oophagy "Seee also" link
Shouldn't a link to Oophagy be added to the "See also" section of this article, and in turn a link to Siblicide added too a "See also" section on the Oophagy article? I'd do it myself right away, but since I'm not a biology expert (not at all), quite inexperienced in Wikipedia editing and not fluent in the English language (not to mention presently being under the effect of combined GABAergic drugs), I decided it would have been wiser to ask first than to just be bold and do it. --93.40.155.93 (talk) 01:24, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Since I've got no answer, I'm going to add the links. After all, I can't help but see intrauterine cannibalism as exhibited by the grey nurse shark as a form of siblicide. If I'm wrong, just revert my edits. --Totmole (talk) 01:43, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Additions
I have added an example of insect siblicide. Thanks!

Ichooxu (talk) 01:31, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on Siblicide. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20131106124639/http://www.ecfs.org/projects/prepole/ANIMAL%20Behavior%2009/Parenting%20Articles/Siblicide.pdf to http://www.ecfs.org/projects/prepole/ANIMAL%20Behavior%2009/Parenting%20Articles/Siblicide.pdf
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20150218213053/http://resources.metapress.com/pdf-preview.axd?code=h26431715736rkw8&size=largest to http://resources.metapress.com/pdf-preview.axd?code=h26431715736rkw8&size=largest

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 21:28, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Fixed clear errors in math in § Mathematical representation
It seems like there is something missing from the section Mathematical representation: There is a possible play-off in parental effort $$\ m\ $$ between the amount of care needed for any successful offspring (which I'm calling "chicks" here in this talk-section) $$\ M_{\mathsf V}\ ,$$ and the "exhaustive" amount of effort $$\ M_{\mathsf H}\ ,$$ that would spend away all of the parents' future prospects for raising more broods. That's all to the good. But the model formulas as-given do not seem to show any playoff between the number of chicks that the care $$\ m\ $$ is divided among, and how well all or some of the brood thrive and become breeding adults. The ingredients of a partitioned-care model are there, but the formulas as-given (or as-explained) don't explicitly describe the play-off between all of the effort spent on a single chick, and the effort spread out among several chicks.

The parameter $$\ M_{\mathsf V}\ $$ in the second block was undefined; I've interpreted it from the formula (as far as described) writing in the text that it's the minimum care required for (the whole brood?) to have any chance of survival. I might myself develop that idea from one individual to several individuals, but that would be my own research: It's not just some easy units-coversion that any decently competent editor might tacitly insert, and I feel that I've stretched the bounds of what is legitimate by explicating the behavior of the formulas as-given (in effect, providing missing description).

Furthermore, the units of measure for "parental care" $$\ m\ ,$$ "future breeding prospects", $$\ f(m)\ ,$$ and the number of individuals covered by the probability $$\ P(m)\ $$ are all undefined. Yes, of course, I clearly understand that the ideas are abstract – it's not like $$\ m\ $$ is going to be as explicit as the count of the number of bugs thrust down the chicks' little throats. And I am a numerical analyst: I know full-well that in play-off optimization, the units of measure for the output is mainly immaterial (as long as it's the same, everywhere). But topically naïve readers absolutely do need discussion / examples of mathematical formulas put in concrete terms, even if it's only to give a list of items, and say that "any of these will do" (e.g. "number of actual crop-fulls of bugs fed to chicks", "calories fed", "parental calories spent in hunting and / or fighting off crows", etc.). Not being a population ecologist, this stuff is beyond me. Not to mention, there isn't a single source cited, so a topically uninformed editor (me) can't even research the original formulas given in the source / text / article, were said editor that ambitious (sorry: not me, not today).

I am just an applied mathematician: I can do a fairly good job of typesetting the grubby, badly written-out formulas that a cogent biologist (if any) sets down, and once they're put down correctly (and adequately defined) I might be able to figure out how they work and improve their explication. But these formulas are not there yet: The section needs review by a mathematically competent biologist (ecologist) who actually knows what they should be, or can abridge the appropriate literature to insert the third block needed to describe the play-off between the parents feeding (and protecting) one chick very well, or many chicks mostly adequately.

And when inserting the missing partition formulas and citations into the section, I would recommend that any subsequent editor feel fairly free to over-write any changes inserted by me on or after 1 May 2024, if you can improve on them: I was shooting in the dark, and am only competent in handling the gun, not being able to clearly sight the target. 166.199.8.49 (talk) 20:55, 1 May 2024 (UTC)