User talk:Scoobydoo567/Idotea balthica

Outline feedback
You have a lot of great information outlined here, I'm really excited to see the final article! I have a few suggestions for the overall structure of the article.

I would pull the habitat use section up before the mating section, since habitat provides more general information about the organism. It is an excellent idea to have a subsection on sex-specific patterns of habitat use. I think it is worthwhile discussing whether different color morphs use different habitats, but I would first explain their color polymorphism in the "characteristics" section that is on the current page. You may consider renaming the "characteristics" section to "appearance" or something more specific, since the word characteristics is a little vague.

In the Mating Behavior and Sexual Selection section, describing the mating system in the short introductory paragraph will help set up later discussions of sexual selection and sexual conflict. I would rename the following two sections to be "Sexual Selection" and "Sexual Conflict". In the sexual selection section, you can outline all the behaviors and factors that affect competition for mates, including the traits assessed during mate choice by one or both sexes, mate guarding, and aggression within each sex. In the sexual conflict section, you can then describe how the processes involved in mate competition lead to conflicts of interests between sexes. These would be aggression between sexes and how the mating strategies of one sex affect the costs and benefits of mating in the other sex (glycogen and egg development).

Overall really great start! Elioeilish (talk) 17:40, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

This is fantastic! This article is extremely informative, thorough, and interesting. The formatting is well-thought out and the content is great! These suggestions are extremely minor because I think this article is outstanding.

Global Improvements: 1. Add more details to the pollination section if possible. 2. Include how large the female can get. 3. Include what the predator of Idotea balthica is.

Local Improvements: 1. In the first sentence of the sexual conflict section, make balthica lowercase. 2. I am a little confused by this statement: “Females have been found to be more resistant, and favor certain resistance maneuvers.” Do the females prefer using certain resistance methods, or do they prefer resistance in males? GreenTea283 (talk) 05:54, 20 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you for all the helpful comments! I really appreciate it. For your global critiques: 1. i didn't go further into the pollination section because that section was made by the person who originally edited the page. 2. i revised the sizes on the idotea balthica. the original editor added the size for the male, but i dont know how credible his original source was. 3. did not see anything on specific predators, presumably because there are so many. i added some general classes in parentheses in the appearances section.
 * the local improvements: i fixed 1 and for number 2 hopefully i made it more explicit that the females utilize certain resistance maneuvers more when they have a greater chance of success with their resistance Scoobydoo567 (talk) 02:57, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

I think that overall, this is a well written article. I like how for the “habitat selection” section, the beginning section describes various aspects that can impact such selection, and then there is a subsection that describes the influence that sex has on differences in microhabitat selection. I think that the separation of “sex difference in microhabitat selection” is particularly helpful in not only transitioning to the next section, called “mating behaviors and sexual selection”, but it also highlights the significance of sex on microhabitat selection as it has its own subsection. Another thing that was done well is the way in which the “mating behaviors and sexual selection” section flows between the introductory section and the “sexual selection” and “sexual conflict” subsections. I think that dividing this section into these two subsections makes it easier for the reader to identify the main theme they should have identified in that section. In terms of global improvements, the mechanism by which males engage in male-to-male competition should be added, if possible. Is there a physical feature that males display or use to fight with one another? Another improvement is that in the “sexual selection” section the term operational sex ratio could use a better explanation. Even though a hypertext/hyperlink is used for the term “operational sex ratio”, the sentence “operational sex ratio is female-biased, and this leads the male to not display a size bias” requires an explanation of what it means to have a female-biased OSR. This would allow more readers to understand the connection between a biased OSR and males not displaying a size bias.

In terms of local features of your article, I think that overall, your article is easy to understand and reads well. I think that the organization of ideas and topics, described above in global features, really adds to the readability of this article. Using all 20 of your sources reinforces the information, and has allowed you to effectively, and with lots of detail, explain these ideas, especially the sexual conflict section. I did not notice any major grammar or spelling errors, however I did notice that in the “sexual conflict” section, Balthica should be lowercase. Although I mentioned that the overall readability is good, the sentence “The level of aggressiveness displayed is firstly dependent on the benefits of a pre-copulatory pair compared to the costs of engaging in pre-copulatory mate guarding at a specific stage in the female’s reproductive cycle” is difficult to comprehend, especially if a reader is not familiar with this topic. Thus, this sentence could use some restructuring. Another minor improvement would be, that the citation should be placed after the period, instead of before the period for each sentence. This is the format that many articles on Wikipedia use for citations. Again, I think this is a well written first draft. Nicely done!

SEBsmile8 (talk) 18:21, 20 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I really appreciate your thorough comments. I appreciate your thoroughness and your comments were very helpful. in regards to the global improvements: i couldnt find anything on how males engage in male male competition, except through mate guarding and attempted takeovers. i couldnt find anything on what they use to fight or compete with one another. i included some more information on what male male competition selects for in males, which insinuates what attributes they use to compete. i also elaborated more on what a female biased OSR is which i hope makes it more comprehensible for readers.
 * For the local improvements: i tried to tweak the confusing wording of the sentence you pointed out. hopefully it is somewhat easier to follow. i fixed the citation issue as well. Once again, thank you for the help! Scoobydoo567 (talk) 03:42, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Notes on What Im working on after first draft
may look at a couple older articles detailing more how Idotea Balthica reproduces.

might also look for more info/ look more thoroughly at sexual selection section. The mating section probably will need to be reorganized, some information may belong in one of the subheaders.

Additionally, want to condense material i added. Scoobydoo567 (talk) 05:13, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Peer Reviews 3, 4 & 5
I think you are progressing well with your article! You provide lots of detail and clearly did plenty of research. My suggestions are as follows:

In regard to global aspects, your subsection on sexual conflict encompasses lots of information and provides different possibilities/outcomes for the information you provide. This keeps the information from showing bias so I think it is well written. You also did a nice job adding to the appearance section and structuring it in a way as to allow your added information to flow nicely from the sentences from the original article. One point of confusion for me was the titles of your last section and subsection. Since the subsections are titled as Sexual Selection and Sexual Conflict, I think it is redundant to include Sexual Selection in the title of the whole section. Maybe you could rename the section more precisely so that it clears up what information will be provided in the intro as well as the two subsections. Also, your section on Habitat Selection gets a bit wordy and was sort of confusing to read straight through. It may be worth considering breaking the main paragraph up into multiple smaller paragraphs (but not necessarily adding another subsection).

In regard to local aspects, I think your use of many citations, nearly double the number required, along with citing each source multiple times, shows the credibility of your article. In addition, you have several confusing/unfamiliar terms hyperlinked to other Wikipedia pages, which is helpful for readers who need more information on specific vocabulary. As for improvements, the format of your in-text citations is inconsistent throughout your article. This is probably a minor issue, but you sometimes include a citation inside the period, sometimes directly after the period, and sometimes with a space in between. It may be less distracting if you format them all in the same style for your final article. Also, the sentence "They postulate this may be due to that male reproductive success is highly size-dependent, therefore males favor finding sources of food more greatly than females" in your subsection "Sex Difference in Microhabitat Selection" sounds a bit off. I think if you restructured it, you could use more precise wording for better readability. It could be changed to something along the lines of "Male reproductive success is highly size-dependent, placing greater importance on the search for food sources than in females, which has been suggested to cause their increased migration and recklessness."

Overall a really nice second draft! Kmbio (talk) 18:33, 6 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello
 * Thank you so much for taking the time to write this thorough review. It was very helpful!
 * To address your global critiques: i tried to break down the long paragraph in the habitat selection into a few smaller ones for increased readability.
 * I am also working to fix the the header for my final section to more accurately reflect its contents.
 * For your local critiques: i went back and tried to fix my citations so they are consistent throughout the article.
 * I reworded the sentence you pointed out in my microhabitat selection so that it is more coherent.
 * Thanks again! Scoobydoo567 (talk) 21:14, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

This is a really well-researched and well-written article, congrats! I really only have a few small suggestions.

Global comments: Nothing much to add here, the writing is really well formatted and flows very nicely. Within the "habitat selection" section, it may help to give common names for some of the species listed (and wiki-links if they have pages already) instead of using their full names each time, but this is a small detail- if it ends up making the paragraph clunky or awkward, feel free to disregard!

Local comments: I won't reiterate anything from the above review, so I would just suggest maybe adding one or two pictures if there are some good ones available that could illustrate any of your sections well. The links to other articles on certain terminology are super helpful.

This is a really great second draft, I look forward to seeing what the final article looks like!Mel.mcguire (talk) 14:21, 13 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you so much for the comments, i appreciate the help.
 * In regards to your global comments: im not sure i can substitute common names since they are both isopods and there is no alternate name for Idotea emarginata (like how idotea batlhica is also referred to as the balthic isopod)
 * Local comments: there is one picture included on the original page, but it is only a zoomed in picture of a singular isopod. I am going to add another picture to this page demonstrating the size dimorphism of this species and its range of colors. Scoobydoo567 (talk) 21:20, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Global Comment: I thought your draft looked great! I think your draft is very well-researched and organized properly. I like how you organized the content of your paragraphs. The information in all the sections is arranged nicely. For improvements, I would suggest merging two small paragraphs in the “Mating behavior and sexual selection” section into one as they look a little awkward to me. Also, maybe you can divide the lead paragraph in Habitat selection into two because it seems too wordy.

Local Comment: Again, I think your draft looks good. You did a great job in organizing the information throughout the draft. It makes your draft easily readable. I think the sentence structure is good, and I did not notice any grammatical mistakes. As for improvements, I noticed that some citations were placed before the period, while some were placed after, and they were not spaced evenly throughout the article. I would move all the citations after the period and remove the space between the citation and the period. Also, in the mating behaviors and sexual selection section, I would recommend adding space between in-text citation and the sentence that starts with “if a pre-copulatory pair is formed..”

Overall, I think your draft looks great! Jmt39 (talk) 01:38, 18 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the writing this critique, it has been very helpful in improving my page. I appreciate it.
 * In response to your global critiques:i got rid of the one of the small paragraphs and i split up the larger one so hopefully the paragraph structures are less awkward. I also broke down the paragraph in the habitat section into multiple.
 * In response to the local comments: i resolved the issue with my inconsistently formatted citations. Scoobydoo567 (talk) 22:08, 23 April 2023 (UTC)