Talk:Synoeca cyanea

Ajlu1 (talk) 23:42, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

General Comments
The genus and species in the article title were italicized. There are a few terms that could be defined or explained to help the reader understand the organism better. For example, the reader may not know what astelocyttarous nests are or what a quiescent stage is. I also linked “quiescent,” "Restinga," "Epiponini," and other terms and species to their Wikipedia pages in case readers wanted to learn more about them. Overall, this article is well done and well written. If more was to be added to the article, I think it would be valuable to add more to the description/nest sections and the colony cycle section. For example, the actual size of an individual wasp, the number of wasps in a nest, the actual size of a nest, and the color of the nest envelope could all be included. As for the colony cycle, how a colony first begins, what happens to the colony during colder weather, and the duration of each cycle are also all beneficial information. Mayxac (talk) 04:49, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

This wasp is really cool, especially the description section and the discussion of its venom. I would be interested to see you elaborate more on the human importance section about the venoms. You list the numerous physiological effects the venom can have on the body, but don’t mention anything about what sort of venom it is, what it is composed of, or how it works. Additionally, in the defense section, it sounds like this wasp is a species no one, animal or human, would want to mess with. Is there any literature about other species that mimic your wasp for protection? Finally, I think it would be cool if you could find a bigger picture of the individual wasp; the picture you have right now is pretty generic. Ajlu1 (talk) 23:27, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Description and Identification
I am not sure if I understand the relationship between the nest development and the size of the queen. Is there any other information or further details about this correlation?

''A queen can be larger than the workers and intermediates, especially if the nest is later in development. This is due to ovarian development.'' --Dwjoanne (talk) 16:09, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

The Nest
I separated the information about the nesting because I thought they were two major ideas. --Dwjoanne (talk) 16:09, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I think it may be helpful to merge the nesting information with the habitat information and expand on how these nests fit into the larger habitat and what the reason for their placement is. This would tie the two ideas together and expand on them to create a more thorough understanding. Danakes6 (talk) 04:36, 11 September 2015 (UTC)Dana WashU

Colony Cycle
Just to clarify, if this species is native to Brazil, what does it mean when its colony cycle starts in 'warm weather'? Isn't Brazil always warm? Is there a specific month when they start a new cycle? And also, information about an exact duration of their cycle would be helpful. --Dwjoanne (talk) 16:09, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Following up with the previous posters comment, it might be more beneficial to give the cycle in terms of months or seasons to reduce ambiguity. Also, the sentence “A pre-emergent colony can have one or multiple queens” was changed to “A pre-emergent colony can have one or more queens” because the sentence seemed like there are only two options in terms of queen number. The sentence “Workers are present with different-aged larvae and more than one adult generation” was changed to “Works are present along with larvae of different ages and multiple adult generations” to make it more concise. Mayxac (talk) 04:49, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Behavior
In the dominance hierarchy section, the second sentence, beginning with “Wasps containing…,” is confusing due to the lists and may benefit from dividing the sentence into two. However, I think it’s really helpful how you stated what determine’s the development of queen’s ovaries, gave an example, and then described why that occurs. In the nest repair section, I am confused as to what the wasps seal the leak with. It seems that they suck in water and expel it outside, but doesn’t explain how the hole itself is repaired. Does the sentence “The hole is then repaired” mean that that fixes the problem or that the wasps then work to repair the leak? Mayxac (talk) 04:49, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Kin Selection
I edited the sentence from:

"In S. cyanea, discrimination between the queen and workers is not determined by morphology, but by physiology" to "In S. cyanea, discrimination between the queen and workers is often not determined by morphology, but by physiology."

because I felt like the original statement contrasted with the information under Description and identification where it said that sometimes queens and workers are distinguished by different sizes. --Dwjoanne (talk) 16:10, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Recommendations
For the taxonomy and phylogeny section, information about taxonomy is included but there is little to no information on phylogenetics. I would recommend adding more links to sections such as colony cycle, behavior, and kin selection. I also changed this sentence (“Male S. cyanea are present in the colony during the male-producing stage”) so the subject and verb agree. Overall, this is a great article with lots of interesting information! Some of the sections however are very short and if possible, should be extended.

Elee715 (talk) 05:57, 19 November 2014 (UTC)