User talk:DGOMEZ14/Paratrechalea

outline feedback
Hi Mich, this is looking good! The main suggestion I have is to remove the subheaders within the nuptial gifts section. You could have a paragraph or two with all the general info about mating (female silk, males provide sperm with pedipalps, females lay eggs, etc. Do the females show maternal care? What is the timing of the reproductive cycle through the seasons?). Then have the subsection focusing on nuptial gifts, but without splitting up that subsection further. It would also be good to provide some general info in the lead paragraph of the article about their appearance and habitats. In good shape though!

Elioeilish (talk) 03:31, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

First Draft Feedback
Hi Mich, nice first draft! The importance of nuptial gifts to Paratrechalea was highlighted very well. I think linking “chelicerae” may be helpful for the male dimorphism section as it is an important topic elsewhere in your article. Additionally, it might be helpful to retitle this section to sexual dimorphisms or just dimorphisms since female chelicerae traits seem to be important too. You did a great job of including and explaining concepts from class in relation to your topics. How do females discern worthless v. nutritious gifts if the worthless gifts are more elaborately wrapped due to the male investing more time and females preferring the elaborate wrapping? I love that you included potential hypotheses about nuptial gifting to round out that section. Perhaps adding a few more female benefits from nuptial gifts can help round out the full picture as well. Maybe you could swap the order of the reproductive cycle and species divergence to set up species relationships first then have a link between reproductive cycle and mating behaviors since there is a brief comment on nuptial gifts at the end of reproductive cycle. Overall, you did a great job on having a general flow and writing style that makes the article understandable, even with the complex topics. You also raised good questions for the reader to be aware of including why nuptial gifting even occurs in this genus and how worthless gift giving evolved. You’ll have a great final article!! Sgreene11 (talk) 17:36, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

first draft peer review
Hello! I really enjoyed your first draft; it's very informative and interesting. For the habitat section, is there any effects these unpredictable environments have on the species? I'd be interested in knowing more about the reproductive conflicts between the two species: why does P. azul mate with heterospecifics more, or how does the P. ornata lose their nuptial gifts? I found the nuptial gifts section very interesting, especially the part about worthless gift-giving. Could you explain what a "chelicerae" is or provide a link for it? I appreciate you explaining the male effort hypothesis and why it is relevant to gift-giving. Overall, I like your article! It's an interesting topic and you have good content for each section. There are just a few grammatical changes that I would suggest to make the read a little more smooth:

Species Divergence section:

P. azul males mistake to mistakenly mate with heterospecific females at a higher rate than P. ornata males.

Male Dimorphism section:

The chelicerae of females and males in Paratrechalea spiders are shown to have a size and color dimorphism, this which can be due to male courtship signaling.[8] The chelicerae trait shows to be a male-biased sexual trait when comparing to the female chelicerae size. The chelicera trait is shown to be a male-biased sexual trait when compared to the female chelicera size. SiriSngi (talk) 20:11, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi Mich, I enjoyed reading your second draft and thought it provided a sufficient amount of information while remaining concise. Some recommendations I would throw out would be either to add a bit about intraspecific and interspecific divergence or hyperlink them to another article, along with heterospecific females. For the sexual dimorphism section: are the chelicerae the only morphological features that express different colors and sizes for this species? Is this species monomorphic outside of their chelicerae? I think the Nuptial gift section is packed with great information. Overall I think your article was well written and provided valuable information that is not too hard for people outside of the study to understand. TouchetteRoman (talk) 23:17, 25 April 2024 (UTC)