Talk:Desert pupfish/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Yzx (talk · contribs) 17:36, 28 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take a look at this one. Comments to follow. -- Yzx (talk) 17:36, 28 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

First of all, this article should be at desert pupfish. General Wikipedia practice is to put fish articles at the common name in sentence case

-Requested

Both File:Male female mecularius.jpg and File:Male macularius.jpg are marked as copyrighted images at their sources. Thus neither can be used on Wikipedia; you'll need to find images with free licenses. There are some here

-File:Male female mecularius.jpg was uploaded with permission from the owner

-File:Male macularius.jpg was uploaded to encylopedia of life link under license CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported), which is apparently acceptable to be uploaded to the commons

The IUCN status needs to be cited, and in any case the species doesn't seem to have been evaluated by the IUCN. It's not listed on the IUCN website
The introduction does not adequately summarize the article; there's no mention of the fish's appearance or behavior, for example
teleost is jargony for the intro, I'd replace it with something like "bony fish" or "freshwater fish"
delta and basin should be linked
There are natural populations of this fish remaining in California and Mexico, however, populations have been introduced to several areas and some fish are kept in private ponds and aquaria. -- this sentence should be integrated with the previous paragraph about range
The information about ponds/aquaria, and about the population decline since the 1900s needs to also be stated in the body of the article and cited
"subspecies" should be linked
C. eremus and C. arcuatus should be linked at their first occurrences
the inconsistencies between haplotype frequency are highly significant and suggest species-divergence of about 100,000 years -- this is very technical language and should be rephrased to be more reader-friendly
Recently, the three subspecies have been classified as three distinct species: the desert pupfish (C. macularius), the Sonoyta (Quitobaquito) pupfish (C. eremus), and the Santa Cruz (Money Spring) pupfish (C. arcuatus) -- this sentence should come after the information about the mitochondrial DNA study, since it is a consequence of the study
Since this is a scientific article, all measurements should be given in metric units, with Imperial conversion in parentheses
have more vivid markings, specifically during breeding seasons -- the "specifically" is unnecessary, unless you mean "especially"
caudal peduncle should be linked
The profile of the desert pupfish is smoothly rounded -- I assume you mean the dorsal profile?
tricuspid should be linked or explained
The distribution map should specify that it's the US distribution, since it excludes Mexico
The map caption shouldn't have C. macularius bolded
salinity, oxygen, substrate, benthic, and algae should be linked
however, the desert pupfish has a smaller distribution than previously considered. -- awkward phrasing
extant should be linked
omnivore should be linked
What is a "shallow zone"? Does this just mean shallow water or is it something more specific?
they will move out of the shallows during the day when water temperatures may rise to 36°C or higher -- is the temperature change the environmental cue for this behavior?
Rate of surface foraging -- should be "the rate"
invertebrate, crustacean, larva, snail, and detritus should be linked
intraspecies eggs and young -- "eggs and young of its own species" would be more reader-friendly
Pupfish will feed somewhat heavily on nektonic organisms, going so far as to suppress or even eliminate local populations of mosquitoes. In the absence of mosquito prey, pupfish will consume benthic chironomid midges both from substrate and from midwater when midges attempt to come to the surface. -- there's some context missing here; how does this information relate to the previous sentences?
Exposed eggs are typically and readily eaten by other pupfish if not concealed by the bearer -- is the "bearer" the female? Also, does "other pupfish" refer to this species or another one?
fertilized and olfactory should be linked
This behavior has been suggested as an analogue to the rejection of alien eggs by avian victims of nest parasitism -- how is it analogous? In function? In mechanism?
model for the maximization of filial fitness -- this needs better, less technical explanation
The "motor patterns" section looks to contain a combination of male-female, male-male, and non-reproductive (?) behaviors; the entire section needs to be broken up, turned into prose, and each behavior put into the proper context
Content in the "breeding" and "reproduction" sections should be swapped. Information about spawning season and territoriality should come first (and be labeled "reproduction"), and spawning behavior should come after (and be labeled "breeding" or "spawning")
Only mammals undergo oestrus; I think you mean "females out of breeding condition"
larger females spawning more than smaller females -- more eggs or more often?
The breeding season of the desert pupfish typically occurs during early spring and into winter -- so it lasts most of the year then?
Breeding behavior includes both territorial arena-breeding (high aggression) and consort-pair breeding (low aggression). -- this needs more explanation
primary productivity should be linked
defend individual territories that are typically less than 1 meter deep -- does this mean "in water less than 1 meter deep"?
The "extreme conditions" section should be integrated with "Habitat and distribution"
It has been noted that the desert pupfish are more abundant in environments with high vegetative cover, pH, and salinity, and low dissolved oxygen and sediment factors, suggesting that living in extreme conditions allows them to survive in environments that are hostile to invasive or nonnative fishes -- the second half of this sentence doesn't follow logically from the first, nor does "living in extreme conditions" proceed logically to "allows them to survive in environments that are hostile"
Recommend that the "management factors" section be renamed to "conservation"
Listed as endangered in 1986 -- by whom?
physical changes in water quality -- what does this mean?
Any examples of the invasive species that are of concern?
The information about management is very vague. Who did the conservation? Where? When? What were the results?
The "see also" section shouldn't include terms already linked in the article (like Cyprinodon), nor categories
Authors in references are inconsistently formatted
ref 1 and ref 9 don't give enough information so that someone else can locate the reference
ref 13 and ref 15 don't include enough information about the websites, and should also have date retrieved

There's much good information here, but the organization and prose can be improved, and there could be many more wikilinks. The main content issue is the unorganized list of behaviors. -- Yzx (talk) 04:59, 29 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]