User:Kuponya/sandbox

Week 2: Article Evaluation
Great chain of being: The article is thorough and gives good detail about the nature of scala naturae. The article moved in a fairly straight progression through the levels of the scala naturae, so that readers would understand how the chain of being works. The article was relatively neutral considering the basis of the topic is hierarchical and, in a way, about bias since scala naturae is the ranking of species and beings. The points are laid out logically and refrain from using leading words that will make the reader feel more strongly towards one line of reasoning rather than another. I would have been interested to learn more about the refutation against the Great chain of being, in order to see the initiation of this approach’s downward progression over time. The outline of the scala naturae is complete, but I would have liked to hear more about the scientific approaches that came in to replace the scala naturae, such as evolution. Although evolution is discussed, I think that it was rather underrepresented in this article. I did not notice, however, any information missing. The information present was thorough and based on my level of knowledge on the topic, it was a complete explanation.

The citations seem to be properly formatted, although some of the links do not work. There are quite a few citations that seem to support the claims that were made in the article. There are a few large gaps between citations in the article, and some claims are not being backed up by any specific quoting or acknowledgement of where the source of information came from. Some of the claims may seem to be biased, but in actuality, it seems that the information is coming from a source that is defining the meaning of scala naturae, rather than the author being biased. Most of the sources seem to be histories or papers written on theories, so they may be neutral so long as the one who developed the theory is not the one writing the paper.

There are several sentences with notes saying that citations need to be added in, so it would seem to me that those notes alone indicate the presence of plagiarism. Also, whole paragraphs being without citations seems to indicate plagiarism since claims are being made but references aren’t being made.

In the Talk page, people were debating some of the scientific and philosophical facts and vernacular used in the article. The article’s use of “Primates” was called to attention, along with the examples the author used in the rankings of the different groups of living and non-living organisms. This article is part of two Wikiprojects: WikiProject Philosophy, where it was rated smart-class and of mid-importance, and History of Science WikiProject, where the article was rated smart-class and of high-importance. Wikipedia takes on a more philosophical emphasis to this topic. Whereas we discuss in class the evolutionary approach to this topic, the wikipedia article focuses on the rankings of organisms by usefulness and other arbitrary characteristics. Kingkl (talk) 01:44, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Group Evaluation
The lack of citations was apparent throughout The Chain section of the article. Then, when there were citations, it was the same couple of citations referenced repeatedly. Although the references seem to be appropriate sources, some of the links are out of date and cannot be accessed by readers.

There is a lot of historical content in the article to give background on the topic. It would be helpful, however, to have more contemporary discussion about the natural science aspect of scala naturae. If there is information on present ideas that can make the article move in a more chronological manner, that would be helpful to understanding how scala naturae has evolved through time.

This article makes generalizations about Christianity and the beliefs of the groups. It would be beneficial to specify the sect of Christianity and time period in which this idea was influential. The article mentions several time periods but fails to discuss further background information and significance that connects the Great chain of being to those time periods.

Week 3: Article Review
Article Reviewed: the angelic beings section of Great chain of being article.

I added a citation to the second sentence of the angelic beings section with a source that had already been cited in the article, but just had not been cited in this particular sentence. I cited the Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas (source 6 in references). In that same sentence, I also changed the statement that angel bodies can be made from air to say earthly elements, since the source says that angels can compose their bodies of several different kinds of earthly molecules.

Week 4: Preferences List for Organisms

 * 1) Amphiuma: I would like to study the amphiuma in order to investigate the skeletal structure of amphiuma, which is not described at all on the wikipedia site. URL: Amphiuma
 * 2) Skate: I would like to study the skate because I think that it's body shape and structure would be interesting to focus in on and investigate how the bones and muscles in the body are joined and how they move to promote locomotion. URL: Skate (fish)
 * 3) Chickens: I helped raise chickens growing up, so I think it would be cool to look into their structure and musculature and, if possible, to look more specifically at the aspects of their body form that doesn't allow them to fly distances. URL: Chicken

Week 5 Dissection Group Topic: Amphiuma
Topic Options for Amphiuma:

(There is not much information, if any, on any of the following topics on the amphiuma pages)
 * Skull and Jaw ~kingkl : There is not a lot of information offered for the structure and make up of the amphiuma skull in the wikipedia articles, so we would like to investigate the make up of the skull along with the musculature of the skull and jaw of the amphiuma. Should we use this topic, we will generate an annotated image of the skull and jaw with components labeled that can be put onto the page.
 * Limbs: We would like to possibly investigate the homology and potential purpose of the limbs, and also the possibility of the regeneration of Amphiuma limbs. Since there are already images of the limbs on amphiuma, there may not be an image that could be added for this particular topic, although we may be able to create a rough sequence of events having to do with the regeneration of the limbs.
 * Food Habits Biologicalamphibian (talk) 01:18, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Sexual Dimorphism: There is no mention of any sexual dimorphism on the amphiuma tridactylum page and we would like to investigate the way in which the sexes differ in that particular group of amphiuma. We would be able to hopefully find images that allow us to compare the sexual dimorphism of body anatomy or another factor that differs between the sexes. It may be that we could annotate an image and just indicate the places where the changes are between the sexes.--Kuponya
 * Reproduction: We would like to potentially expand on the reproductive anatomy of amphiuma tridactylum since their behavior once laying eggs is described but not the anatomy of the reproductive process. For this section we can obtain images of the reproductive anatomy of the amphiuma and annotate the images for the components of the anatomy.
 * Bone and teeth: We have a couple of sources on amphiuma teeth and the way in which they develop, which is not mentioned in any of the articles, that we could add to the amphiuma tridactylum page.

Articles:
 * Articles on Skulls and Jaws: Chondrocranium anatomy of amphibia, Skull and Jaw musculature of amphiuma
 * Articles on Limbs: Limb regeneration of Amphiuma
 * Articles on Sexual Dimorphism: Sexual Dimorphism of Amphiuma tridactylum, Observations on a population of amphibia, amphiuma tridactylum , Sexual selection and dimorphism in the amphibia
 * Articles on Reproduction: Reproductive anatomy of Amphiuma tridactylum
 * Articles on Food Habits: Biologicalamphibian (talk) 01:36, 10 March 2018 (UTC), Observations on a population of amphibia, amphiuma tridactylum
 * Sources on bone and teeth: Ontogony and tooth number in Amphiuma tridactylum, the Teeth of non-mammalian vertebrates ~kingkl
 * Book with general classification, distribution, and characteristics: Herpetology: an introductory biology of amphibians and reptiles ~kingkl

'''

Comments from Dr. Schutz:''' Begin your work for next week by considering the following next steps:
 * 1) Very good start. You have identified some good gaps and found some potentially great references.
 * What is a good reference? Some of the primary literature you found is terrific (your gold standard). Keep going.
 * How will you integrate each other's edits? This may not be clear now and not always possible, but it should be attempted.
 * Don't foget that you will also integrate with other Wikipedia pages....potentially some of your edits may not even happen on this page.
 * What kinds of images/illustrations will be useful for you to find (see info on the appropriate use of images)/produce and contribute?
 * As you detail in your plan many images can come directly from the dissections you will do, so think about how you want to approach that. Also, look ahead to week 11. The description for that assignment has numerous links to useful information for the appropriate use of images etc.
 * The question that you asked for feedback on is perfect in this regard. Great job on asking for specifics.
 * Start drafting some content as you prepare for next week.
 * Ask me in lab for your study animal so that you can make a plan.
 * Make sure all team members complete all training!
 * When asking for help (which is great) you will have better outcomes if you ask for specific feedback. You do a great job here. I would actually consider posting your first question as a proposed change to the talk page of the amphiuma article.
 * It is clear to me who will focus on which sections, but you are going to want to establish a more formal organization to your page. I posted some sample sandboxes in the timeline for week two. Go back to those for examples and as a way to crib some of the formatting elements.
 * I noticed that there is pretty much even contribution from all of you. Nice work.
 * REMINDER: Please draft your work in your own sandbox and THEN copy it here. That will prevent loss of work and improves the chances of providing clean copies without typos and formatting problems.

Osquaesitor (talk) 20:18, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Week 6: Draft 1 of Our Articles
Kuponya's Section: Sexual Dimorphism and Lungs

Draft:
 * Current Plan:
 * Article I will add to: Although many of my sources generally discuss the amphiuma tridactylum, I will most likely post in the general amphiuma page, since some of the material applies across all of the amphiuma subgroups.
 * Images: I will hopefully be able to look at both a female and a male amphiuma so that I can get images that allow me to show the placement of any sexual dimorphism and compare and contrast across the sexes.

Amphiuma demonstrate sexual dimorphism in relation to the size of the bodies and the size of their heads. Generally, males have been found to possess larger bodies and longer heads compared to the female sex, which normally is indicative of male-male combat observed within the population. There has been, however, no other physical indicating factors for male-male combat as in other species of Amphibia, such as horns or spines. Some populations do not show these sexual dimorphic traits, and in certain locations female and male bodies do not exhibit any traits with significant differences. Draft:
 * A second topic that I found through my research on sexual dimorphism is the lung of the amphiuma, and I have found a significant amount of information on this. Since I thought that this might be a more interesting and well developed topic, I also have prepared a draft and I will choose which subject I want to focus on.
 * For images: I would be able to dissect only one amphiuma instead of two since I wouldn't need to compare sexes, which would make my dissection work a lot more simple.
 * I am slightly concerned because on the Salamander page on wikipedia, there is a statement that does not reflect any of the sources that I have yet found, suggesting that amphiuma use their gills to breathe, rather than lungs. So I would have to be careful about fact checking and making sure the the facts that I find are reinforced by other sources as well.

Amphiuma possess relatively ancestral, paedomorphic forms of lungs compared to some of the other groups of salamanders that live terrestrially today. Their lungs are long organs, extending over half of the body length of the amphiuma, with dense capillary networks and large surface area that suggest the utilization of the entire lung for respiration while the amphiuma is in water or on land. Although it is common for amphibia to respire out of their skin, also known as cutaneous respiration, it was found that amphiuma primarily respirate through their lungs, despite their aquatic lifestyle. This is suggested by the high lung to respiratory capillary density compared to the relatively low skin to respiratory capillary density.

The amphiuma lung was found to work through a two-cycle pressure-induced buccal/nares process. This system is defined by the amphiuma performing one full cycle of body expansion and compression in order to inhale and another full cycle to exhale, which is a unique process that utilizes both the buccal cavity and their nares. The pressure that activates the cycles of expansion and compression have to do with a rise in the pressure within the lung to assist an increase in buccal pressure, although it was found that the buccal pressure gradient alone was not enough to drive respiration in the Amphiuma tridactylum. Rather, it is the pressure control performed in the lungs that drive the inhalation and exhalation forces through the flexing of smooth muscle in the lung. The buccal cavity allows for small pressure changes that are thought to have an olfactory purpose. In order to exhale, amphiuma push air from their lungs into their buccal cavity, distending it, before releasing the air, and without inhaling, they repeat the process, exhaling a second air bubble that allows them to completely empty their lungs. Only after both exhales can they then inhale, using the pressure gradient made by the smooth muscles in their lungs.

Kingkl Section: Jaw

Section would edit:

Current plans: Draft:
 * Jaw
 * There is little information provided on Wikipedia on these structures in Amphiuma. The information would most likely go into the Amphiuma page. Sources I have looked into discuss the jaw more generally from Amphiuma and tie it to sexual dimorphism, which another group member is working on.
 * Possible imagery would be of the jaw musculature and skeletal characteristics. This would give the ability to show/explain important features and functions in the jaw of our animal.

Amphiuma are primarily carnivorous amphibians that consume crayfish, insects, and other small vertebrates. Similar to many salamanders, the Amphiuma has two distinct forms of suction feeding procedures: stationary and strike. This gives them the ability to feed on living or dead food sources. Amphiuma's ability to displace its jaw to feed means they can consume a large variety of organisms. But Amphiuma's narrow jaw makes it harder for them to fully consume large prey such as crayfish or mice. In these cases, they will use one of the forms of suction feeding and then rip the prey into pieces until fully consumed. Small prey will be pulled completely into the mouth before being eaten. Structure of the teeth within the jaw tend to be arched caudal on the head.
 * Jaw in males tend to be larger than in females, which applies to sexual dimorphism and may be brought up in either or both sections.
 * A section could also be added with connections the jaw and skull, but could possibly be too broad. ~ Kingkl (talk) 15:28, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Biologicalamphibian Section:

Food Habits


 * Current plan

There isn't much information of the food habits of amphiuma. The information gathered on this subject will be uploaded to the amphiuma wiki page. Furthermore, I will explore the behavioral aspects of why amphiuma hunt they way they hunt and if their geographic location affects the prey they pursue.

On top of eating frogs, snakes, fish, crustaceans, & insects they have also been found to eat annelids, vegetables, arachnids, mollusca, and insect larvae. Arguably the preferred food of the amphiuma is crawfish, which they will pursue over any other food in captivity. In the wild their food choices are directly related to the availability of food. It has been suggested that large amphiuma will not pursue small crawfish due to the expenditure of energy in relation to the gain in energy and prefer to wait for large crawfish. In captivity the behavior they display has been observed to be dependent on the presence or lack of food. Where they will lay in wait when food is absent but will become more active once food has been introduced into their habitat .Biologicalamphibian (talk) 22:59, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Week 9: Responding to Peer Review
Kuponya's Section:


 * I added in wikilinks to Amphiuma tridactylum, buccal cavity, sexual dimorphism, cutaneous respiration, Amphibia, and salamanders.
 * I also grammatically edited my sections based on the edits suggested by Caduceus
 * I found an image of the sexual dimorphism of external genitalia between males and females of the amphiuma in the Cagle article that is exactly 70 years old.
 * I tried to fix the Linnean nomenclature that was mentioned.
 * I need to brainstorm ways in which to address the information discrepancy between what I have found and what is said in the salamander page about the lung, and I think doing what ReallyCaffeinated suggested and posting a question in the talk page would be a great way to go.
 * I think that the ideas presented by ReallyCaffeinated about expanding on the breathing mechanism of the amphiuma is a good idea, so I want to further my research a little more on that.

kingkl's Section:

Three main points people gave the jaw section were:
 * Defining the difference between strike and stationary mechanisms of feeding.
 * Work on contributing what I can to sexual dimorphism with the information on the jaw.
 * There was a mention on the evolutionary relatedness of the features.

I will be working on and discussing with my group: more information about differences in jaws between males and females and finding pictures or diagrams that I could possibly use. I will also be adding a bit more information that defines the difference between the two feeding mechanisms of Amphiuma. Finally, I may try to look into the evolutionary relatedness, but it will be the last part I will be looking at. Some of the secual dimorphism will be hard to apply directly from our animal, I will look into images of this for our second draft. Kingkl (talk) 01:45, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Adjustments based on Peer review

Biologicalamphimbian's section


 * One critique I got was that my food habits section my have repeated some already written statements. This was intentional, the first sentence had what was already written but I expanded it.
 * Secondly I received multiple comments about working on my sentence structure so I re worked it.
 * The last piece of advice I got was to rework my statement on preference of crawfish and energy expenditure pursuing larger vs smaller crawfish, so I addressed that.
 * I think expanding on more ways amphiumas display predatory behaviors and sectioning these differences may help tie my section together.

I plan to work with the author of the jaw section to tie predatory behaviors with the biomechanics and anatomy of the jaw to really wrap my section up.Biologicalamphibian (talk) 02:57, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Comments from Dr. Schutz:
 * Good job responding to the reviews and finding common patterns in comments that led you to make specific changes or find ways to collaborate with each other.
 * As you work through your drafts, be sure to use the rubric I provided
 * I like that you have topics that are diverse. Also, I like that as you explore sexual dimorphism, you are finding ways to relate it more broadly. Remember, images showing the dimorphism are not exactly needed if you cannot find a good source.

Week 10: Draft #2
Kuponya's Section:


 * I edited my draft in the week 6 section, but I've also copied it down into this section.
 * I added more details about the lung processes after reading ReallyCaffeinated's comments.
 * I didn't have much more to say about sexual dimorphism, so I just tried to clean up the grammar a little bit more.
 * We are making headway on our dissections so that we can get images, we are working on exposing the musculature of the jaw and also revealing the stomach and the lungs. Since we have not completed these dissections yet, we do not have images to put up here, but they should be ready soon.
 * I am thinking that I will link my contributions to the salamander page where amphiuma respiration is noted. I may also go to sexual dimorphism page and link in the amphiuma page.

Sexual Dimorphism Draft 2:

Sexual Dimorphism:
Amphiuma demonstrate sexual dimorphism in relation to the size of their bodies and the size of their heads. Generally, males have been found to possess larger bodies and longer heads compared to the female sex, which normally is indicative of male-male combat observed within the population. There has been, however, no other physical indicating factors, like horns or spines, as evidence for male-male combat as in other species of Amphibia. Some amphiuma populations do not show these sexual dimorphic traits in their head or body size, and in certain locations female and male bodies do not exhibit traits with significant differences at all.

Lung Draft 2:

Lungs:
Amphiuma are aquatic organisms with the capacity to live on land for extended periods of time due to their high-functioning lung possessing unique respiratory systems to help navigate the amphiuma's variable aquatic and terrestrial living conditions. Amphiuma possess relatively ancestral forms of lungs compared to some of the other groups of salamanders that live terrestrially today. They live in warm, muddy conditions and can spend significant amounts of time in either water or on land, depending on what their environment is like. Their lungs are long organs, extending over half of the body length of the amphiuma, with dense capillary networks and a large surface area that suggest the utilization of the entire lung for respiration while the amphiuma is in water or on land. Although it is common for amphibia to respire out of their skin, also known as cutaneous respiration, it was found that amphiuma primarily respirate through their lungs, despite their aquatic lifestyle. This is suggested by the high lung to respiratory capillary density compared to the relatively low skin to respiratory capillary density.

Respiratory Process:
The amphiuma lung was found to work through a two-cycle pressure-induced buccal/nares process. This system is defined by the amphiuma performing one full cycle of body expansion and compression in order to inhale and another full cycle to exhale, which is a unique process that utilizes both the buccal cavity and their nares (openings of nostrils). The pressure that activates the cycles of expansion and compression have to do with a rise in the pressure within the lung to assist an increase in buccal pressure, and it was found that the buccal pressure gradient alone was not enough to drive respiration in the Amphiuma tridactylum. Rather, it is the pressure control performed in the lungs that drive the inhalation and exhalation forces through the flexing of smooth muscle in the lung. The buccal cavity allows for small pressure changes that are thought to have an olfactory purpose. In order to exhale, amphiuma push air from their lungs into their buccal cavity, distending the cavity, before releasing the air. Without inhaling, the amphiuma repeat the process, exhaling a second volume of air that allows them to completely empty their lungs. Only after both exhales can they then inhale, using the pressure gradient made by the smooth muscles in their lungs to take in air.

Food Habits draft 2:
The amphiuma’s predatory behaviors and food selection is very calculated and variable depending on abundance of food. In addition to eating frogs, snakes, fish, crustaceans, insects, and other amphiuma, amphiuma have been found to eat annelids, vegetables, arachnids, mollusca, and larvae. Amphiuma seem to have a preference for eating crawfish. It has been documented that amphiuma will pass on smaller crawfish in order to consume larger ones. It is suggested that perhaps this limits wasting energy pursuing prey with less caloric density. In captivity, the predatory behavior amphiuma display depends on the presence or lack of food. Amphiuma will remain inactive when food is absent, and will become more active once food has been introduced into their habitat. This shows that the amphiuma, although ancestral to many amphibia, has developed a deductive approach to its predation.2601:603:1E7F:C1B4:4532:C637:4795:8FD3 (talk) 03:37, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Jaw section draft 2:

Amphiuma are primarily carnivorous amphibians that consume crayfish, insects, and other small vertebrates. Similar to many salamanders, the Amphiuma has two distinct forms of suction feeding procedures: stationary and strike. Stationary being when the Amphiuma stays in one place and opens its jaw and sucks in prey and strike being when the Amphiuma attacks by lunging and grabbing its prey. This gives them the ability to feed on living or dead food sources. Amphiuma's ability to displace its jaw to feed means they can consume a large variety of organisms. But Amphiuma's narrow jaw makes it harder for them to fully consume large prey such as crayfish or mice. In these cases, they will use one of the forms of suction feeding and then rip the prey into pieces until fully consumed. Small prey will be pulled completely into the mouth before being eaten. Structure of the teeth within the jaw tend to be arched caudal on the head.

Week 11: Illustrate an Article Draft
Kuponya: Lung Image


 * I used an image that my group took in lab and annotated it to make it more clear what the viewer should be looking at
 * I also included a small magnified view of the vascular tissue since it is unique looking and interesting to view up close
 * Zoomed in and Annotated Amphiuma Lung with Body Orientation.jpg also oriented the view a little about where in the body the lung reside

Kingkl: Jaw Image


 * I used an image that came from our groups dissection that I annotated for clarity of which muscles they were.
 * I used a anatomy book for the Mudpuppy to label the muscles due to very little information on the musculature of the Amphiuma.
 * The muscles could use more cleaning so that they are more clear in the image as well as other views of the jaw.Jaw Muscles of Amphiuma (group dissection).jpg (talk) 20:47, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Biologicalamphibian: Digestive tract




 * Have you proofread your caption? -YES
 * Is the image your own? -YES
 * Can a reader easily understand what they are looking at? -YES
 * Does the image supplement and improve the article? -I don't think it does but I only think that because my section is on food habits and predatory behavior is very difficult to capture with an uncommon animal on a non copyrighted photo.

Week 13: Continued Editing and Revision
Kuponya:

I removed paedomorphic from my part on the amphiuma lung, since I found that ancestral was a better description of the lung.

I also revised the respiration component in the hopes of making the two components of respiration more clear.

I created a respiratory sub heading under the lung section for the amphiuma.

Revised Respiration Contribution:

Pressure gradients for respiration occur in two different locations, the buccal/nares (mouth and nostril) region, and in the lungs of the amphiuma. The first system for respiration occurs in the buccal/nares through a two-cycle pressure-induced buccal/nares process. This system is defined by the amphiuma performing one full cycle of body expansion and compression in order to inhale and another full cycle to exhale, which is a unique process that utilizes both the buccal cavity and their nares (openings of nostrils). The buccal cavity creates pressure that aids in driving the cycles of expansion and compression required for respiration, although it was found that the buccal pressure gradient alone was not enough to drive respiration in the Amphiuma tridactylum. Rather, the buccal cavity allows for small pressure changes that are thought to have an olfactory purpose. This buccal/nares component to the amphiuma respiratory process supplements the contribution performed by the lung, since it is the pressure control performed in the lungs that drive the inhalation and exhalation forces through the flexing of smooth muscle in the lung. In order to exhale, amphiuma push air from their lungs into their buccal cavity, distending the cavity, before releasing the air. Without inhaling, the amphiuma repeat the process, exhaling a second volume of air that allows them to completely empty their lungs. Only after both exhales can they then inhale, using the pressure gradient made by the smooth muscles in their lungs to take in air.

Week 14: Final Edits
-I went onto the salamander page and added a link in the respiration section to my page

-My final sections that I contributed to are in the Amphiuma page. I added the Lungs section, including the Respiratory sub-section, and the Sexual Dimorphism section under Anatomy. My image contribution is in the Lung section.