User:Slaw88/Urban evolution/Farolineclin Peer Review

General info

 * Whose work are you reviewing?

Slaw88 (Urban Evolution)


 * Link to draft you're reviewing
 * There is no draft on the sandbox. The edits were made on the online page.
 * Link to the current version of the article (if it exists)
 * Urban evolution
 * Urban evolution

Evaluate the drafted changes
Lead

The lead of the article was not edited, and it doesn't have to be since the edits didn't change much of the article's content.

Neutral Tone

The content added was neutral and the edits were mainly to change wording and sentence structure.

What are the strengths of the content added?

I liked the edits you made on the section "Urbanization" and "Urban habitat fragmentation", I believe it improved the reading flow.

The section added to "Urban evolution examples" improves the article, because it is important to highlight the need for a genetic base.

The link to the citation (19) is working and addresses the information added.

How can the content added be improved?

In the section added to "Urban evolution examples", I suggest you rewrite the sentence "[...]observed phenotypic divergences or differences in responses to urbanization have to be genetically based and adaptive[...]". Because I do not understand why phenotypic divergences have to be adaptive for it to be considered urban evolution. In my conception, evolution can happen even without it resulting in adaptations.

Right after that, you write that "Hence, it will be appropriate to consider neutral/non-adaptive and adaptive urban evolution, with the later needing to be sufficiently proven." which I agree with.

I think it would also be interesting to add to this Wikipedia article a paragraph about phenotypic plasticity. A challenge in studying urban evolution is also associated to the difficulty in distinguishing a trait that resulted from evolutionary change or just from phenotypic plasticity.

I also think the section headings and the overall article structure and organization could be improved. For example, I think the section talking about examples should come after the sections that explain "Genetic Traits" and "Behavioral Changes". The way the article is structured now makes it hard to visualize and quickly identify each of the examples of evolution in Urban areas.

Images

I believe this article would benefit from some images. Maybe one of the articles cited has a nice visual diagram that could be used. Or even images of some of the species used as examples.

Re: Farolineclin Peer Review

Hi Farolineclin,

Thank you so much Carol for your review.

Regarding your comment on my inclusion on the "Urban evolution examples" section, I was an oversight. I intend to say that they have to genetically based to be evolution but need to be adaptive to be tagged adaptations. And hence my next sentence about neutral/non-adaptive and adaptive urban evolution. I will include the suggested correction.

I will also consider your other suggestions, including the one about phenotypic plasticity.

Thank you once again.

Regards,