User:Cdc832/sandbox

My name is Cassandra and i attend Memorial University. Today I am simply trying out how to work the edit tools such as making something bold and italicized.

Article Evaluation
The article assigned to myself is about bird preening. I found that the article was overall well done and it was written in such a way that many people can enjoy and understand the importance of preening in avians. However, there were some problems I had with the article. I found that the section, "Importance of preening," the author(s) only say it is important rather than explaining why it actually benefits the birds. It mentions some important factors like the removal of parasites in the "Allopreening" section, but that is a few sections down from the "Importance of Preening".

As mentioned earlier, it felt as if the article was jumping from place to place. It is again seen under section "Preen Oil" where the author(s) speak about the uropygial gland. Here they explain very well what this is and where it is located, however they continue to write about things with, what seems to be, no connection to the uropygial gland. This flow is something that needs to be corrected, it is confusing to the reader when the author(s) bring up statements about things but never make a link back to the main point.

Continuing on, I would like to again point out the fact that the author(s) do very well in ensuring that the article is written in such a way that those who have no background in ornithology can understand. The author(s) also do a relatively good job on keeping the article neutral. However, I believe that it could have been done better by including more references in which something was disproved as well as proved. By doing this, the article will remain neutral and not favour one side more than the other.

By looking at the history of the bird preening page, one can quickly see that the most edits have been made by a select few authors. The two names I see the most are Shyamal as well as MeegsC. When one opens their "talk" pages, it can be noted that although these two have edited quite frequently, one cannot see much communication between the two. I believe that this may be the result of the lack of coherency within the article and can definitely be improved with communication within the "talk" pages. Now that the core content of the article has been addressed, I will now discuss the references within the article.

Within this article, I believed that there was much more citations required than what was provided. There was a lot of information given that was not referenced at all when it should have been. An example of this is in section "Secondary Functions" when the author(s) write about how preening may serve as courtship displays. That is all well and good, however this is clearly a theory. This theory needs to be backed up with some sort of reference in which studies have been done to either prove or disprove this as well as to give the researcher credit for his/her theory. As of now, this is telling me that the author(s) has developed the idea that a secondary function of preening is to aid in courting within avian species.

Continuing with citations, I checked a couple of citations to confirm links were working as well as to check the dates and information within the articles. Citation number 3 brings me to an article titled "Preening and Associated Comfort Behaviour in Birds." A quick look at the date tells the reader it is a paper published in 1988. This article is relatively old, it is very likely that new ideas about preening in birds have been discovered since this paper was published. It is important for author(s) to ensure information is still up to date by reviewing their sources when possible and doing follow up researched to ensure that in fact the theories they write about are not obsolete. With that being said, it is important for author(s) to ensure that they make an edit indicating that they have checked to ensure that the research is up to date.

In essence, although this article thrives in writing in such a manner that all can understand, it falls short on other very important factors. The article can be greatly improved simply by increasing coherency, proper citations to give others the credit they deserve, as well as ensuring to follow up on the statements made within the article to ensure that the science has not changed.

Contribution to Flock (birds)
Although I have contributed to the bird preening frequently this semester, I have decided to assign myself an ornithology stub about flocks. This stub has great potential, the flocking of birds is of great interest of many. I believe with my contributions to jumpstart this wikipedia page will make it thrive!

To begin, it can be seen that this article requires a few citations for some information. My first task will be to compile information from various sources including:
 * Ornithology, Frank B. Gill 2007
 * Role of Projection in the Control of Bird Flocks, Pearce et. al 2014.
 * To Eat and Not Be Eaten: Modelling Resources and Safety in Multi-Species Animal Groups, Srinivasan and Quader 2012

This list is not restricted to references and not all may be used depending on what is required when I begin writing. Another thing to note is that many of the links to the citations used in this article thus far do not work. I would like to search for these articles online in order to maintain some of what is already present.

The second thing I would like to address is the fact that there are no categories present within this article. Some of the categories I would like to include in this article the following categories: Flocking, Mixed Flocks, and Foraging Patterns in Flocks, and Flocks and Protection from predators. While this article begins to address these situations, it does not go into a great deal of detail. With some research, I would like to go into more detail about how flocks benefit a multitude of categories such as foraging for food as well as how these large flocks actually defer predators.

Because there is no sectioning of the article, besides the Black Sun section, all the information has been placed into one paragraph. I would like to correct this. By being written in this format, the writing feels jumbled together feeling as if it runs on and on. This may be a bit of a challenge, I do not want to remove the entire passage and begin from scratch. My idea is to instead reduce the information as an introduction, almost like an abstract to a scientific article. The details will be explained within the categories I have suggested be within this article. By doing this, I will maintain what was present in the original article while creating a more organized writing.

The only citation with a link that actually works is the one about the Black Sun, also known as Sort Sol. I would like to continue with this, providing a bit more insight into what this natural phenomenon is as well as why the starlings perform this behaviour.

The article in question has so far remained impartial. This is great, especially because of the variety of editors that contributed so far to this article. While in the previous article Preening (bird), it was often that I saw there was a lack of coherency to the writing. Here this is not seen. I would like to continue this pattern while being able to add more information.

= Rough Draft of Wikipedia Article - Flock (birds) =

Lead
A flock is a gathering of a group of same species animals in order to forage or travel with one another. In avians flocks are typically seen in association with migration. While this is true it can also be seen that flocking is important in safety from predation, foraging benefits, and energy cost reduction. However it is also important to note that living in a flock can also come at a cost to the birds living within it.

The definition of flock is narrow, only focusing on a single species existing within a flock. However the existence of mixed flocks are also present in the environment and consist of at least two or more species. In avians the species that tend to flock together are typically similar in taxonomy as well as morphological characters such as size and shape By having a flock with multiple species present, the defence against predation increases. Defence against predators is particularly important in closed habitats such as forests where early warning calls play a vital importance in the early recognition of danger. The result is the formation of many mixed-species feeding flocks.

Mixed Flocks
While mixed flocks are typically thought to be composed of two different species, it is specifically the two different behaviours of the species that compose a mixed flock. Within a mixed flock there can be two different behavioural characteristics: sally and gleaner. Sallies are individuals that act as guards of the flock and consume prey in the air during flight. On the other hand gleamers are those that consume prey living within vegetation.

Studies performed have shown that as resources in the aerial environment increase that the flock will possess more sallies than gleaners. This has been shown to occur during forest fires in which insects have been flushed from vegetation, however this can also be done by the gleaners. When gleaners obtain meals from vegetation it causes the other prey within the vegetation to be flushed out into the aerial environment. It is through this specific behaviour of feeding among vegetation that the gleaners indirectly increase the foraging rate of the sallies

Those birds that are more rare and therefore less abundant in an environment are more likely to perform in this mixed flock behaviour. Despite the fact that this bird is more likely to be a subordinate, its ability to obtain food increases substantially. As well this bird is now less likely to be attacked by a predator due to the fact that predators have a lower success rate when attacking larger flocks. This mobbing behaviour is quickly learned by the juveniles within a flock meaning that these individuals will be better equipped as adults to ward off predators and respond rapidly when a predator is in sight.

Safety from Predation
The ability to avoid predation is one of the most important skills necessary in order to increase one's fitness. It can be seen that by ground squirrels living in colonies, the ability to recognize a predator is rapid. The squirrel is then able to use vocalizations to warn conspecifics of the possible threat. This simple example demonstrates that flocks are not only seen in bird species or a herd of sheep, but it is also apparent in other animals such as rodents. This alarm call of the ground squirrel requires the ability of the animal to first recognize that there is danger present and then to react. This type of behaviour is also seen in some birds. It is important to note that by making an alarm call to signal members of the flock one is providing the predator with an acoustical cue to the location of a possible prey. The benefit here is if the members of the flock are genetically related to one another. If this is true, even if the bird that signalled the flock were to die its fitness would not decrease according to Hamilton's Law. However another study involving Thick-knees challenged whether or not an animal had to recognize the presence of a predator for protection against it.

Thick-knees are birds that are seen in large flocks during particular seasons in various regions. For example the thick-knees located in Chile during non-breeding season have reported to have an average of 22.5 birds amongst their flock. This is a unique behaviour of the Chile Bush Thick-knees due to the fact that these flocks mainly consisted of non-breeding juveniles and non-breeding adults. It was during this non-breeding season that juvenile Bush Thick-knees were observed learning anti-predator behaviour strategies from adults. It was argued that the purpose of the flocks within the Thick-knees was not to spot predators easily, but rather it was believed to decrease the predators success rate when attacking the flock.

By birds co-existing with one another in a flock, less time and energy is spent searching for predators. This mutual protection of one another within the flock is one of the benefits to living within a group. However as flock numbers increase the more aggressive individuals within the flock become towards one another. This is one of the costs to living within a flock. It is often seen that flocks are dynamic and thus fluctuate in size depending on the needs of individuals in order the maximize benefits without incurring a large amount of costs.

By living in a large flock, birds are also able to attack the predator with a stronger force compared to if the bird was on its own. In the Black-capped Chickadees it can be seen that flocks of birds can produce a mobbing call when it visualizes a possible predator. In response the Black-capped Chickadees within the flock surround the predator and attack it in a mob-like fashion in order to force the predator to leave.

Foraging in Flocks
By living in a flock bird species are able to capture a, likely injured, prey from an unsuccessful bird within its flock. This behaviour is known as the beater effect and is one of the benefits of birds foraging in a flock with other birds.

It can be seen that birds in a flock may perform the information-sharing model. In this situation the entire flock would search for food and the first to find a reliable food source will alert the flock and the entire group may benefit by this finding. While this is an obvious benefit of the information-sharing model, the cost is that the social hierarchy of the flock may result in subordinate birds being denied food by those that are dominant. Another cost is the possibility that some individuals may refuse to contribute in the search of food and instead simply wait for another member to find a food resource. These individuals are known as producers and scroungers, respectively.