User:DoubleDub2021/Clumping (biology)/Leafcutter Ant Peer Review

General info

 * Whose work are you reviewing?

DoubleDub2021


 * Link to draft you're reviewing
 * Clumping (biology)

General:
I thought that this article draft did a great job of pulling from real world examples and exploring the topic by using the blue mussel as a case study. Although there isn't a lot of content at this moment, the section makes good use of previous studies done on the subject and cites these paper properly. I think that the main change I would like to see is an expansion of the article beyond clumping as it appears in sessile marine creatures. As we discussed in class, I thought that you could expand on the reasons why species evolved to clump together: as this article suggests (https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/density-and-dispersion-19688035/) there are two main reasons why organisms clump — they either derive some benefit from being in a social group, or there happens to be a concentration of resources in one particular habitat. I think that you can make these two reasons each their own section and find specific examples for each in the real world. For instance, the same webpage talks about spider populations sometimes clumping because their prey are typically concentrated in grassland habitats.

I think it would also be interesting to expand your view of clumping to more niche topics. For example, I found this paper (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4632621/) that puts the evolution of multicellular organisms within the context of clumping! It discusses how clumping of unicellular organisms was beneficial because they later evolved to divide labor amongst them and each get a more specialized function.

As I mentioned in class, I also really like your formatting when to introducing species with their scientific names, and I plan on applying that to my own article when I revise it over the weekend. However, I would like to see you expand on your description on how the gastropod "drills" into the mussels and predates on them that way. Not only is that concept entirely foreign to me, but the way it's written uses a lot of nominalization and was pretty hard to follow. Hopefully with a little more vivid detail on how exactly clumping might prevent drilling, I might be able to get more from that particular passage.

Tone and Balance

 * Is the content added neutral? Yes, I would say so! The information that you have added is pretty fact-heavy and is in-line with the tone I would expect from a Wikipedia article.
 * Are there viewpoints that are over- or under-represented? I found that both times you made a claim about clumping and its benefits you immediately follow it up with a "however" and temper that information. I would like to know how prevalent each viewpoint is in the scientific community. Do scientists typically view clumping as a defense mechanism? Of the two points of view that you pit against each other, which one has greater scientific backing? Do both have equal backing? As a reader, I would be interested in knowing which perspective on the benefits of clumping is more widely agreed upon by scientists.

Sources and References

 * Is all new content backed up by a reliable secondary source of information? Yes!
 * Does the content accurately reflect what the cited sources say? (You'll need to refer to the sources to check this.) Yes, but there could definitely be much more information pulled from the articles. I would like to see more specific findings from each of the studies. The Cote article, for example, provides a nuanced view of how predation impacts mussel clumping. Although you mention that there are "trade-offs" to clumping in this scenario, I wish you were more specific. You could talk about how quickly mussels in high-predation scenarios clump compared to control groups, how clumping impacts locomotion, and why mussels clump. Is it more due to space concerns or is it actually an evolutionary strategy to reduce an individuals' risk of getting preyed upon? Both of these possibilities were noted in the conclusion of the Cote article.
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic? The sources are definitely thorough, but could be more broad. The two sources added both have to do with blue mussels -- perhaps delving into different examples of biological clumping would allow you to put together a more thorough bibliography.
 * Are the sources current? More could definitely be done to bring in more current work on biological clumping. Right now, the only studies that were added were one published in 1999 and one published in 2008. While these are important inclusions despite their age, it would be great to get a sense of the current work being done in clumping today.

Organization

 * Is the content added well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
 * Does the content added have any grammatical or spelling errors? The only grammar error I found was in the first sentence of the second paragraph: "The practice of clumping has been practiced by bivalve organisms has been ongoing into times of the fossil record, and the trade-offs between living quite an aggregated lifestyle". The sentence doesn't seem to have a main clause, it uses "practice" twice, and reads like a sentence fragment.
 * Is the content added well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic? Yes -- although there isn't a whole lot of organizing to do at this early in the writing stage, the paragraphs are well structured. Hopefully, as you flesh out more sections you can create more relevant sections to structure the article.

Overall impressions

 * Has the content added improved the overall quality of the article - i.e. Is the article more complete? Definitely! I think that clumping is a super interesting phenomenon that has had embarrassingly little coverage on Wikipedia up until now. I really hope that you can find some more unique examples of clumping exemplifying why the trait evolved. I think that splitting up the article into three sections -- what clumping is, why animals clump (the social aspect + the shared resources aspect) and the consequences of clumping (the effects on human infrastructure, real-world examples of community benefits from clumping) would be a great format that would allow you to flesh out the article even more.
 * What are the strengths of the content added? The content that you added was well-written and, even more importantly, well-researched and cited. Your paragraphs each have a main topic sentence that sets up clear expectations for the reader as they work their way through the article.
 * How can the content added be improved? For the most part, we just need more of it! I was able to speak to you in class about a few new avenues that you can take to expand the current scope of the article. I am very excited to see you pursue some of these routes!