User talk:Mplate323/Bastard sturgeon

External Review
Hi Mplate323 - My name is Jolie, and I'm the Project Coordinator for the WikiProject Limnology & Oceanography team. Your external review for your article on the bastard sturgeon is posted below. If you have any questions about your review, or would like to clarify anything, please feel free to let me know by posting a message on my talk page and I'll pass it along to your external reviewer. Thanks, and all the best as you wrap up your Wikipedia editing assignment!

EXTERNAL REVIEW - I am an Assistant Researcher at the University of California Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory, in the 2nd year of my position in a professional researcher career track. I received my PhD from UC Santa Barbara (2015), and received my BS from University of Vermont (2002). I pursued seasonal field biology positions for many years in between these two programs.

I primarily study endangered frogs (the mountain yellow-legged frogs, Rana sierrae and R. muscosa) that inhabit high elevation lakes in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California and western Nevada; this includes habitats in protected areas like Yosemite National Park. Our studies of these frogs focus on the causes and consequences of their declines, which are largely driven by infectious disease. My team also studies how to reverse these declines, and we cooperate with Yosemite National Park, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, and two zoos (San Francisco and Oakland). We often help release zoo-raised frogs back into the wild to reestablish populations at sites where frogs were extirpated by disease.

I am a community ecologist and I work in freshwater systems. My interests revolve around how species interactions shape communities. These interactions include disease-host, predator-prey, competitive, and indirect interactions. For example, my postdoctoral work focused on how predators (gartersnakes) challenge restoration of frog populations, and my dissertation focused on how the loss of frogs from Sierra Nevada lakes influences aquatic insect and algal assemblages. In the course of my research, I have spent over 3,000 days and nights backpacking in the Sierra Nevada.

REVIEW: Bastard sturgeon (Acipenser nudiventris)

Overall: This is an excellent expansion of a species description in Wikipedia, which was previously identified as a stub. The challenge with many species descriptions is that for most described species, relatively little information is available. However, there is a reasonable amount of primary literature information available, even beyond what is included here. Although there additional information could be added, this revision is a significant improvement. This revision does a good job of incorporating the information in the original article with new information. It is notable that the revision improves the references by using more primary sources.

To the extent that I understand the pillars of Wikipedia and the editing process here, I believe this article meets the guidelines. The writing style, punctuation, and grammar meet the Wikipedia standard of being broadly accessible. I did not identify areas where copy-editing was critical, but careful proofreading is always recommended.

Lead Section: No lead section is currently included or formatted as such. The section that is currently titled ‘Current Article…’ would make a good lead section, and the ‘Current Article…’ heading should be abandoned.

Other sections: Feeding, Reproduction, and Conservation all seem like relevant sections, and have sufficient text to support their inclusion. When information is available, additional sections might include: Etymology, Taxonomy, Description (as in, morphology and distinctive characters), Geographic range/Distribution, Biology (which could include subheadings for or be replaced by alternate headings (including Habitat, Reproduction, Ecology, Diet=Feeding), History, Conservation, Economic Importance/Human Use.

Specific comments on existing text:

Reproduction:
 * Anadromous could include hyperlink.
 * Seasons (spring and fall) do not need capitalization in this context.
 * The last sentence ‘On average…’ might be better placed after the sentence ending ‘…October and November’, because both sentences describes eggs.

Endangerment/Conservation Efforts:
 * ‘Conservation Status’ may be a section heading that is more similar to other species pages.
 * Further, the word ‘Endangerment’ doesn’t feel like a commonly used term in this context. Endangerment, Endangered, and endangered hold various definitions in ecology, conservation policy, and law in general, so Conservation Status may be a less ambiguous section heading.
 * Remove: (original article + citation), (moved from original wiki article/cited).
 * ‘Healthiest’ may be an ambiguous term for describing a population, especially for ESL or non-English speakers/readers.

References: These seem sufficient and appropriate, for the content.

Comments on other features: The Infoboxes for species, including the taxonomic hierarchy, conservation status/IUCN rating, and synonyms, are helpful (assuming their content is correct or reflects current scientific consensus). The taxonomic relationships that appear in the purple boxes are also helpful. I don’t know if these features are automatically included by Wikipedia for a species, or if they still need to be transferred from the existing/previous entry to the revised entry.

I referred to these Wikipedia pages as comparison for typical or well-developed species pages; note that these taxa may be significantly better researched than A. nudiventris:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trout

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_bullfrog

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_trout

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_terrestrial_garter_snake

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_yellow-legged_frog

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Nevada_yellow-legged_frog

JoGDelta (talk) 15:29, 3 May 2021 (UTC)