Talk:Polistes fuscatus

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I recently edited this article, and I have a few short suggestions for the main author(s). In the behavior section, I think it would be helpful to readers if eusociality was defined, and how Polistes fuscatus does and doesn't fit into this definition. Also, the section about queen interactions seems kind of aloof. I don't quite understand how it ties into eusociality or dominance. Finally, I assume that this species shows haplodiploidy since female workers try to bias the sex ratio, but there is no mention of this or its consequences. Still, I think this article is off to a good start and has a lot of detailed information for one species. Blubird25 (talk) 06:33, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Good information overall. I think there could be more information in the introduction, so I moved the distribution and habitat sections to the top introduction, along with a sentence summarizing their behavior. I also found some more information about the facial recognition and the impact it has on the wasp’s behavior and how it is reflected in the hierarchical system. Good job adding links (such as “eusocial”) in your article, and I think the sex allocation section was very thorough. JenniferReed1015 (talk) 14:44, 10 October 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jenniferreed1510 (talk • contribs)

I agree with a lot of what Bluebird25 said. The behavior section seems rather poorly written. I am not going to attempt an edit, because the major issue is disconnected sentences with missing info, and not minor phrasing issues. It seems as though this writing is just a series of statements without too much transition between sentences. For instance in the first paragraph it mentions eusociality and then begins to launch into queen interactions, with no real lead in, and it does not make much sense. The sex allocation part is confusing, mentioning that most organisms are 1:1, then eusocial ones are not, but these wasps are 1:1. Very confusing. Haplodiploidy hypothesis should also definitely be discussed. Lastly, What does the (156) mean?? This was totally ambiguous JSDavis2 (talk) 03:37, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

It seems that this article could benefit from more information. "Antennal drumming, trophallaxis, and colony development in the social wasp Polistes fuscatus (hymenoptera: vespidae) by S. Suryanarayanan,"The function of dart paper in the paper wasp, Polistes fuscatus" by A Sumana and "Dispersal of first "workers" in social wasps: Causes and implications of an alternative reproductive strategy" by HK Reeve all have very interesting information to contribute. Especially the latter two could be used to increase the behavior section with a deeper discussion of dart behavior and alternative reproductive strategies, which sound promising. Amruthapk (talk) 22:55, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Amruthapk on her comments about this article. I also think that given that there is an entire section for reproduction that can be referenced in the lead, because that would give a better summary of what is in the article. There are also a few links throughout the article that do not lead to a page within wikipedia, so those should probably be unlinked. I went ahead and added a picture in the facial recognition to illustrate the importance of the facial and abdominal markings. If possible some more general information about the habitat and the distribution of this wasp would round out the article. I think overall it is really good and a few additions could really make this a good article! Hansika.n (talk) 22:44, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

The article addressed the dominance of the queen and made vague statements about her occasional altruistic behavior of letting subordinates lay their own eggs. I would be interested in more discussion as to what determines when the queen behaves altruistically and when she does not. (Akinjenn (talk) 20:52, 11 September 2014 (UTC))

Class Comments

This article could be improved by adding a section on diet and feeding of Polistes fuscatus, as well as making the section on geographic distribution more specific. (Katieortman (talk)

This article is very well written and gives a good comprehensive overview about the wasp species. I made some grammatical and sentence structure changes to improve the flow of the article. Additionally I added in some external links in order to be able to make some words that may be unknown to the general public more clear. Also for the words that do not have external specific wikipedia pages try to explain what they are. An example of this type of term is apical flagellomeres, a word most people will not know. Also I italicized the name Polistes fuscatus and made some of the f’s in this name lowercase. I really like your colony cycle section it is well structured and has some really great details included in the section. I really like that you focused on behavior in all of your sections. This gives the reader a really good idea of the behavior patterns of the wasps. Amy Krause(talk)2 October 2014 — Preceding undated comment added 16:21, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

This article has a lot of solid information on behavior, but having 10 subsections to one heading was a bit overwhelming. So, I changed 3 of these sections to fall under sexual behavior, and then changed the order of the general behavior section. Also, the formatting of the introduction section of this page was not correct because the information was in a box that stretched beyond the scope of our webpage. So with a bit of trouble, I finally got it to look the way the rest of our articles look, and added the italics necessary to make it uniform. More generally, I think this page could benefit from a section on diet and feeding, like Katieortman said above. Good start! Jamie Halpern(talk)2 October 2014

Hello! I changed to writing of this article throughout to eliminate awkward wording, but I didn’t make huge changes to sentence structure because I didn’t want to eliminate anything you thought was essential. This article could use a good revision in terms of flow of writing. The genus Polistes should be italicized throughout, as well. I really appreciate the section that addresses the deterrence of vertebrate predators. I’d also like to suggest including a section on parasites, since I know that is often a problem for wasp species and nests. How much of an impact has this been shown to have on Polistes fuscatus colonies? Great job! Kellykries (talk) 20:19, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

There were a couple of instances where the species name was accidentally not italicized so I went in and corrected those instances. Also made a few grammar and organizational to changes to sections such as “Mating”, “Reproduction”, and “Sex Allocation.” Overall, I went through and corrected a few grammar mistakes here and there, but there was not much left to really fix. The only thing left to really improve this article is to add more pictures throughout the article itself so that it’s not just comprised of blocks of text. Great job on creating such a thorough article! Samontenegro (talk) 23:14, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

The strengths of the article on Polistes Fuscatus were its clear and concise writing and its coverage of the basic essential information on the species. One of the most interesting information I’ve read was about the study in which the researchers altered the facial and abdominal markings of the wasps to see what effects it would have and then found that it only affects the recognition of the individuals, not their rankings, which differed from some other species of wasps. The article was rated C-class for quality and middle for its importance, with which I agree. Even though the article was clearly written, I thought it lacked information in comparison to other articles with B-class rating. I think the article could be strengthened by the addition of the following categories: kin selection, human importance, and interaction with other species. More information on kin selection under a separate category would be needed because it is essential information of the species in order to understand them and some of their behaviors. Human importance would help the readers to understand what impacts the species can have to them and why they should care. Lastly, there is some information on the species’ interaction with other species but I think having a separate category with more information would be helpful since it helps the readers to understand its role and behavior in the ecosystem.KimCourtney (talk) 16:37, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

The information in this article is generally good and effectively covers almost all of the basics of P. fuscatus's behavior. The various references to "aggressive" behavior need better explanation, either when mentioned or, even better, within its own section. The word "aggressive" is vague and there is no differentiation between the aggression shown towards intruders and competing colony-mates. Additionally, the haplodiploid reproductive model should be more directly applied to P. fuscatus is particular, as it is key in understanding the reasons behind interactions between wasps of the same colony, especially in the area of reproduction. For this reason, I would also move the section discussing haplodiploidy to just before discussion of sexual behavior to emphasize its importance. Melliott132 (talk) 03:39, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Incorrect photograph?

The photograph used in this article does not look like any of the P. fuscatus depicted on bugguide. https://bugguide.net/index.php?q=search&keys=fuscatus&search=Search - 97.123.161.66 (talk) 11:14, 18 May 2018 (UTC)