Talk:Xylocopa pubescens

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Kjkozak. Peer reviewers: PhonoxClassic, Mkfreiler, Danakes6, Kulshrestha51.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:13, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Review and Edits
Overall, this article has a great organization and interesting information on interspecific interactions and dominance hierarchy. I just made a few edits for clarify and added some missing information. I added a few sentences to the overview section to flesh it out to Wikipedia’s standards of 200-600 words. I added a new major heading, “Behavior”, and separated mating and foraging behavior underneath this larger category, which might make it easier for people to add more edits in behavior later specifically to that section. I added more information on the order and family of Xylocopa pubescens in the taxonomy section to better contextualize its life history. I also wrote in a missing reference in this article to the agriculture section. The writer had correct information on honeydew pollination by this species, but was missing a reference to the paper that first published the study. Also, to add in some comparison between other bee species, I referenced an article from a related bee species and added a few sentences in the reproductive suppression section. Lastly, I changed any awkward wording I found and added in commas and punctuation where needed.

Mkfreiler (talk) 17:37, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

This article had a lot of interesting information and had clear organization. I made a few changes in word structure to make the writing flow easier and fit the Wikipedia writing style. In the first paragraph, I changed “all the way to” to “from Southeast asia extending to Northeast ….”. I also changed “it lives in these...” to “the species tends to inhabit these…”. Lastly, I changed “Reproductive suppression is often coming in social insect colonies so queens can maintain a genetic monopoly of the offspring in the nest.” to “Reproductive suppression is often used in social insect colonies by queens to maintain a genetic monopoly of the offspring in the nest”. Other than that, I added some punctuation and added some articles ("the", "a", "an"). I also wanted to point out some confusing statements that might need some clarification by the author. I don’t know if this statement: "After that, between 1-8 adult females may be present one time as new adults remain in the nest for up to 2 weeks” makes sense. I wasn’t sure if the adult females were the new adults and were staying for up to 2 weeks or if they were overseeing/protecting the new adults. It might be made more clear if you add a time period/season when the adult females are present (i.e. is it still in the spring? Or after the progeny have hatched?) and if you clarify the role of the adult females. I tried changing it to “Between 1-8 female adults may be present at any one time. And new adults many remain in the nest for up to 2 weeks”. However, I wasn’t sure if this was the original intended meaning and decided not to change it, so I would advise the original author to clarify the sentence. I think it would also be beneficial to clarify “However, in Xylocopa pubescens, the dominant female of the nest suppresses reproduction of any other females in the nest by preventing them access to the cell in the tunnels of the nest necessary for eggs”. How are the cells necessary for eggs? Do they act as a place for eggs to be kept?

Megxb (talk) 18:08, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

The article has a decent amount of information and is separated appropriately. There are, however, several grammatical errors as well as awkward sentence structure. I made a few preliminary edits to the article to improve clarity and serve as a guideline for further proofreading. To strengthen your article, as well as comply with Wikipedia writing guidelines, effort should be made to change "can be" and similar hesitant/unsure to a direct "is" or "are". This will give more credence to your words and better establish yourself as a Wikipedia expert. This extends to phrases such as "is known to", "may be", "has been observed to", etc. Phrases such as "Has been observed to" should only be used when the data collected conflicts with the observation, otherwise the phrase itself is redundant.

Ie. "Colonies can be founded throughout the breeding season, which takes place from the beginning of March to the beginning of November, depending on ecological conditions."

To: "Colonies are founded throughout the breeding season, which ranges from the beginning of March to the beginning November." Ecologically dependence can be expanded on in a second sentence, describing the specific ecological conditions - such as temperature, resources available, etc. - that causes the breeding season to vary.

Ie. "Becoming the dominant female in a nest requires a takeover from the previous dominant female."

This sentence is redundant and poorly worded. As it stands, it implies that the previous dominant female must take over. Simply by omitting "from the previous dominant female"

"Becoming the dominant female in the nest require a takeover."

The meaning of the sentence becomes much clearer. More, however, should be done to this sentence.

"Carpenter bees have been observed pollinating agricultural plants such as passionflower and cotton, but X. pubescens does not naturally pollinate any agricultural plants."

to "Although several species of carpenter bees have been observed pollinating passionflower and cotton, X. pubescens does not naturally pollinate any agricultural plants."

The sentence structure implicitly implies passionflower and cotton to be agricultural plants, which prior knowledge enforces. If you want to reword the sentence to include a more direct statement linking passionflower/cotton to agriculture, I would suggest rewording the sentence entirely.

PhonoxClassic (talk) 18:08, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

The article is thoroughly detailed, especially including the agricultural significance and the role of parasites to the Xylocopa pubescens bees. I would recommend if possible going back and adding a citation for the information in the introductory paragraph, and expanding upon the description of the bee as well (if such information is available). I added several links to the body of your article in order to clear up some of the more esoteric content and make it less isolated from the overall Wikipedia encyclopedia. I also removed a few links since the Wikipedia style manual recommends only linking the first iteration of a term. I also corrected a few grammatical mistakes/awkward sentences in order to make the article flow a bit better. I hope my changes helped! Kulshrestha51 (talk) 23:19, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

This article was very well organized and contained interesting sections on the behavior of "Xylocopa pubescens", especially with respect to the discussion on "Exocrinology and Communication." With respect corrections, I included hyperlinks for terminology that might not be familiar to readers in the context of bee behavior, including "colony", "pollinator", "nest", "progeny", "pupal", "pheromones" and "forage"; I only included hyperlinks for these terms when they first appeared in the article. Additionally, I transferred the links that were made to "Southeast Asia" and "Northeast and West Africa" from the paragraph under the "Range" subsection of "Distribution and habitat" to the very first paragraph since this section is where these regions are first mentioned. Further, I made some grammatical and syntactical edits, including changing "inhabitat" to "inhabit", inserted a hyphen between "reproductively" and "dominant" in the discussion under "Female takeovers" and "Division of labor" and shortened "18 degrees Celsius" to "18° C", since this is how it is symbolically abbreviated. As an area of improvement, it might be interesting to include more information on the activity of the parasite, Coelopencyrtus, if that information is available as well as research more on other parasites that afflict this bee. Overall, however, this was very enjoyable to read! Cmbakwe (talk) 03:22, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Peer Review 2
Danakes6 (talk) 03:29, 23 October 2015 (UTC)This article has been well reviewed and did not have many errors. I reworded some sentences that needed improved clarity, and fixed some grammatical errors. In addition, I changed the verb tenses to be consistent across the page and to make it more grammatically correct. Overall, this article had a wealth of information and I would just suggest expanding on some of the shorter sections towards the end like predators, parasites, and agriculture.

Additions to the article
Fantastic article! I went through and added an image that I felt helped illustrate the foraging behavior for the bee. I also added a couple links within the article and I reviewed the text for spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Kulshrestha51 (talk) 20:44, 4 December 2015 (UTC)