Talk:Brachygastra mellifica

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This article was the subject of an educational assignment in Fall 2014. Further details were available on the "Education Program:Washington University in St. Louis/Behavioral Ecology (Fall 2014)" page, which is now unavailable on the wiki.

Peer Review

Overall, I think this article is a great work in progress. I focused on the writing aspect of the article and made a couple of minor grammatical or sentence flow corrections to the entire article. Below, I have listed sentences that I think should be revised. I thought the information in the ‘Appearance’ section was organized well. I thought the first sentence in the ‘Colony cycle’ section was repetitive and unnecessary ("Nests of B. mellifica can have anywhere from 3,500 to 18,700 wasps.”) I thought the ‘Sources of food’ section was repetitive as well. A better picture in the right hand box with a picture of the actual wasp species rather than its nest would be nice. I thought you used the references really well and milked a good amount of information from them.

A couple questions I had:

In terms of the ‘Pollinators’ section, is this species special because it can pollinate avocado flowers because it isn’t hairless? It seemed unclear.
In terms of the ‘Sources of food’ section, what’s harvested, the plants or the wasps?

Sentences to consider revising:

Colony Cycle: "The high relatedness of a given colony's queens may indicate that such queens are only produced in the colony when there is a single queen.”
Diet: "B. mellifica is very good at searching and feeding on D.citri in tree flushes, one of their major prey.”
Diet: "B. mellifica also may consume larvae of Anthonomus aeneoulus Dietz and a moth from the family Alucitidae.” (Does Dietz need to be in parentheses?)
Predators: "Diogmites angustipennis Loew is a robber fly known to prey on honeybees that has been observed preying in B. mellifica.” (Does Loew need to be in parentheses?)
Predators: “Other dismembered nests have damage that is similar to the damage caused by the woodpeckers to the nests.” (This sentence seemed out of place)

Sandyamuchimilli (talk) 22:42, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Hello, I am currently working on a class project on wasps and just wanted to make a few comments about the article. There are two places in the introduction that state this is one of the few types of wasps to produce honey. I think if all of the information about honey was put together, the introduction would flow a lot better. Also, I think it would make sense to place the section about the Vespidaae Family before the one on the nest since it is the only section that is focused on the family instead of the single species. The section headings also probably don't all need to say Brachygastra Mellifica since the article is about that species. For example, the one that says "The Brachygastra Mellifica Community" could just say "Community" and relay the same information. More generally sections about colony dynamics and life cycle would be useful to get a better understanding of this species. Overall I think that the article has some interesting information and is off to a good start! Ashleyearley (talk) 23:06, 10 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there! I am also working on a class project on the Vespidae family, and I wanted to briefly comment on this article as well. I believe that this article would benefit from the addition of information regarding how a population of these wasps behave together. Although the article highlights specific behavior, such as B. Mellifica attacks and its tendency to pollinate avocados, the article should focus on behavior within a population. For instance, do the wasps cooperate to practice "fortress defense" of their resources? How specifically does the high relatedness between the female wasps come about? Are the larvae raised by multiple workers (life insurance)? I also agree with the above poster and believe that the section titled "The Brachygastra Mellifica Community" should be above the sections that describe its relationship with avocados/prey, since the "community" section is about the B. Mellifica species alone. From a grammar/aesthetic standpoint, the multiple misspelled words in the article should be fixed (make the article more well-written), and a more relevant/easily visible picture of the wasp should be added at the beginning of the article. This article has some interesting information and could hugely benefit from some reorganization and addition of more useful information, thereby broadening the scope of the article and making it more about the species itself. RJPet (talk) 03:02, 11 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I am also working on a class project dealing with species of Vespidae. I found this article very interesting because the sections were unique to this particular wasp. The relationship to the honeybee stuck out to me, as well as B. mellifica's avocado pollination trait. However, there is a lack of important information about this species. It would be beneficial to add a section about wasp behavior so humans can better understand how this species acts. Also, life cycle and reproduction is crucial for wasps and the addition of a section on this topic would better the article. Images would really help bring this article together and make it more understandable. I agree with the previous poster that more general information on this species specifically would strengthen the article overall. Overarching section headings would make this article more organized and easier to read as opposed to the seemingly random topics chosen for discussion. With a little more organization and expansion of information in the article, this article will be greatly strengthened. Mhimmelrich (talk) 23:40, 11 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I am also a student working on a class project focusing on the Vespidae family. This page would really benefit from proof reading to catch all the small errors. Although some errors were obvious, in other cases, I did not understand what the author intended to say. For example, in the diet section, it states, “B. mellifica also may consume larvae of Anthonomus aeneoulus Dietz and a moth from the family Alucitidae.” I am not sure what ”Dietz" is, and small errors like this really disrupt the flow of the paper and take away from the facts. Most of the small errors included either not italicizing the genus and species, or italicizing the genus and species as well as the following word. Instances where sentences are repeated in multiple topics should also be taken out, just to keep the information concise. There are also places where the author includes information about a study, which may not be as beneficial as stating the facts and just citing the paper. For example, in the kin selection section, readers may not understand what the r-value represents, unless the author describes it. The same issue happens when peaks are discussed in the honey production section. Also, in the hunter of pest insects section, I’m not sure if D. citrus is supposed to be the same species as D. citri, which was mentioned previously. If it is, it would be beneficial to include the description of the species the first time it is mentioned. Lastly, a lot of the facts in the paper do not have citations, so going back and adding some would really help, especially if readers are looking to read more about a species. Overall, the content is detailed in its topics and the only issue is really just typing errors. More behavioral topics could definitely improve the article, but the main topics are all present. For example, you could include a topic on how individuals within the nest communicate or a topic on mating behaviors, which can be between males or between a male and a female. Mayxac (talk) 03:01, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This article does a great job of emphasizing the importance of cyclical monogyny for this species. I edited for spelling/typos/grammar through the section "how is genetic relatedness determined?" but I can tell that there are a number of issues throughout the rest of the article. I think some of the sections are unnecessary, and the content could be better placed in the previous section. For instance the sections "Worker to queen relatedness," "worker to worker relatedness," and "how is genetic relatedness determined?" might best be covered in a single heading: "genetic relatedness." Additionally, content could use some clarification. The sentence "The split-sex ratio is the most distinct in any swarm-founding wasp currently studied" is not very clear. Maybe you could get rid of this sentence? Also, when discussing the diet, it might be helpful to clarify what is D. citri, and where it is present. I ended up taking out a sentence or two that was misplaced or repetitious. But overall, if the article was proofread a couple more times, it would be a good start for the species' wikipedia page. Gaharrison94 (talk) 07:56, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Taxonomy and Phylogeny

The sentence "B. mellifica is the only species to occur in the US, in both Arizona and Texas. B. mellifica ranges from Texas to Nicaragua” was changed to “B. mellifica ranges from Texas to Nicaragua and is the only species to occur in both Arizona and Texas.” Mayxac (talk) 18:38, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Appearance

The sentence “In general, external reproductive organs can distinguish male verses female. Male has a stinger and female has claspers.” was changed to “In general, external reproductive organs can distinguish males versus females; males have stingers and females have claspers.” In the following sentence, “ndiviuals” was corrected to “individuals.”

Distribution and Habitat

In the sentence beginning, “B. mellifica is found in a range from…,” “American” was changed to “America.” In the sentence “B. mellifica builds its nest in the canopy of a shrub or a tree, often 1 to 9 m above the ground,” the word “builds” was un-italicized. Mayxac (talk) 18:38, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Colony Cycle

The sentence “Populations are abundant during July and September, times that are associated with plentiful citrus groves and thus large D. citri populations, a common prey of B. mellifica” was changed to “Populations are abundant during July and September, which are times associated with plentiful citrus groves and thus, large D. citri populations, a common prey of B. mellifica.” D. citri should also be expanded the first time it is mentioned to include the full genus and species name along with a quick description of what it is. “B. mellifca” was corrected to “B. mellifica” in the sentence starting in “Like all advanced eusocial hymenoptera…” Mayxac (talk) 18:38, 1 October 2014 (UTC) Amy Krause(krausea) 1 October 2014 (UTC) The article is very strong and each section is clearly well thought through and executed. I made some small grammatical changes in almost every section changing a few sentence structures or words. Also try to cite your sources more often throughout the paragraphs. This will make it look a bit cleaner and like you are getting the information from various different academic resources. Also in the worker-to-worker relatedness section I feel like you could expand on what behaviors occur between workers. This could include anything about inner worker conflict etc but this section could use a bit of expansion on it. Additionally, try to explain the significance of the r-value, as many people reading the article will not understand its significance. Otherwise really nice job I like your human importance sections and feel like they explain the significance of your wasp really well in a multifaceted way.[reply]

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