Talk:Eastern yellowjacket

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This page was added by Matthew Trantow, for a class assignment in the Biology of Animals class at University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh. If you have any suggestions for the student or the instructor, please let us know. Thanks! Bio230 (talk) 21:22, 28 April 2009 (UTC)Bala Thiagarajan (Lecturer).

Yellow Jacket Sting Cure

I was stung by a yellow jacket last month, and my grandmother told me to chew some tobacco from my cigarette and place the wet tobacco on my sting site. So, I did. It worked wonderfully and not only removed the pain, but also started taking down the swelling immediately. I have been stung 3 times this summer, but this is the only time that I was pain free within an hour. After applying tobacco, she said to wash with peroxide and put Neosporin with pain relief on it, and I did. It worked so beautifully that I will now use this remedy again and again, in the future. If their are other remedies out there, please share with me, as I get stung often in my profession. Email remedy to: [email protected]. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.60.29.155 (talk) 20:55, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Article Comments

Although this article featured a broad overview of the eastern yellow jacket and was able to give a basic description of the species, it lacked content detail, especially in addressing the behavior of the eastern yellow jacket; though taxonomy and classification were not mentioned at all. In the Biology and behavior section of the article, the author only covered: life cycle and reproduction, nests, and diet. Although the sequence of events of building a nest was deftly explained and was very interesting to read about, the life cycle and reproduction and diet of the eastern yellow jacket, two subjects that the author could have written much about, were only skimmed at the surface. Furthermore, although the author exercised correct grammar and spelling for the majority of the article, he or she first uses “yellowjacket” in the title of the article but then uses “yellow jacket” throughout the rest of the article.

Yangjennyh (talk) 02:52, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Vespa maculifrons article comment

Hi! I am a student working on contributing to pages on social wasps, and I have a few comments on this article. This article did a great job of introducing the species and the various behaviors of the social species. The introduction states that the wasp is a social insect that has supportive child caring systems, and social castes within the colony. It also discusses the habitat and regional spread of the species. I think this introduction should have served as an outline for the rest of the article. For example, there could have been sections of regional spread, nests, and social behaviors (including reproduction, child care, social hierarchy, territorial defense, and feeding). This would have given the reader a full sense of the species. However, there were no sections on the childcare, feeding habits, or social hierarchy. A childcare section would help establish the roles of each wasp within the colony. The article discusses how workers take over the role of childcare after the queen passes on the responsibility, but who are the workers and how do the workers care for the offspring? In the same sense, a feeding habits section would supplement the brief section on diet. How do the workers forage enough food for the colony? How often do they eat? This would give the reader a better sense of the business of the species. Finally, a more detailed discussion of the social hierarchy will help the reader to comprehend how the wasps cooperate with each other. Each of these aspects is touched upon in the article, I was just hoping for more detail. I hope these comments help in supplementing this article!

Kaykup (talk) 10:24, 11 September 2014

Peer Review

I have reviewed your article and made a couple of small changes. I removed a few links that did not seem necessary such as the links to species and kin and removed links to things that things that did not have pages. I also reworded a couple of sentences, fixed a couple grammatical mistakes and changed the capitalization of section headings to sentence capitalization. For references, I made it so if the same reference was used multiple times in a row it was just cited once at the end. I would also suggests that you remove the conservation status section completely since it has not been reviewed by IUCN or add a reference to support comment that it would be in the least concern category. Lastly there is a place in the Distribution and habitat section that says “(Nesting)”. I think this needs to be changed to be a reference. Overall, I though the article was very well done and gave a lot of interesting information on your species! Ashleyearley (talk) 00:19, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

A Few Recommendations

(1) Can link some more words to other wiki pages

• a. Under Taxonomy and phylogenetics, the word ‘tarsal’ and ‘brood’
• b.Under ‘Description and identification’- the word “subterranean” could be linked

(2) Italicize genus and species

• a. Very few overlooked, for example under Taxonomy and phylogenetics, towards the bottom, V. maculifrons is not italicized.

(3) Could vary sentence structures to make paragraphs sound interesting

• a. Under Taxonomy and phylogenetics, “V. maculifrons is part of the Vespinae subfamily, and these species are part of the yellowjackets, distinguished by their black and yellow color.[5] V. maculifrons is commonly called the eastern yellowjacket and found in eastern North America. “
• i. Both sentences begin with V. maculifrons is…
• b. Under ‘Description and identification’
• i. Sentences 2-7 all start with “The…” This can disengage the reader and sound monotonous.

(4) Add more photographs

• a.Generally, photographs really aid in understanding concepts and help readers’ understanding. I would recommend adding more photographs if possible.

(5) Minor grammar errors a. Under the section, ‘Parasites,’ shouldn’t the first sentence read, “ Vespula squamosa is a common parasite of V. maculifrons…?

• i.Awkward wording in the beginning of this sentence: “To become parasitic, a V. squamosa queen

(6) Others

• a.Under the section, ‘commensals,’ author’s first sentence: Commensals, which is a relationship where one organism benefits from living on or with another organism without harm…” is redundant because the word ‘commensals’ is linked.

Elee715 (talk) 18:54, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Peer Review

I have reviewed your article and have a few suggestions. I think it would be beneficial to include additional information about kin selection. The information provided was very interesting, but I would like to know specifically how individuals of V. maculifrons are related to other individuals in their colonies if this information is known. I think this would make clear many aspects of the kin selection section. In addition, I have made some small changes to your article. I removed some unnecessary links, such as the link to “springtime.” I have moved sections of “Taxonomy of phylogenetics” that relate to description into “Description and identification.” I agree with the comments above that perhaps the writing could be revised in order to make the article flow better. In addition to making the writing more succinct and varying sentence structure, some sentences need to be made more clear. For example, the sentence “V. maculifrons is commonly found throughout eastern North America to the Great Plains” can be edited to make the meaning more clear. I know photographs can be difficult to obtain the rights to, but adding more photographs would definitely be beneficial. Overall, I thought you did a great job! The article taught me a lot about the eastern yellowjacket. MadisonPomerantz (talk) 21:37, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Additional feedback

Mayxac: Thank you so much for your expansion of this article - it's nicely comprehensive and well referenced.

A few ways that you could improve this article still further

• You start too many sentences with V. maculifrons - think about structuring your sentences differently, so that the reader doesn't hit the same construction over and over. (This makes the article more readable.)

• Use {{convert}} for lengths and weights (see the existing example in the Description section; ask me if you have a hard time figuring out how to use it). That way you always have both sets of units present.

Communications

• "On the other hand, the facultative social parasite of V. maculifrons, V. squamosa, do respond to the alarm response of V. maculifrons" - should just be "responds", not "do respond"
• link [[gaster (insect anatomy)|gaster]] the first time you use the term

Life history and survivorship curves

• "begins to demise" - odd wording, demise is a noun, not a verb - and you linked to the wrong term (compare demise with demise (disambiguation)). Unless there’s some technical reason for using demise (in which case you should restructure the sentence to use it as a noun) I would recommend using [[senescence|senesce]]

Parasites

• Italicize Vespula squamosa

Commensals

• "Commensals, which is a relationship" - actually comensalism is a relationship, commensals are the organisms with which you share that relationship
• Link Fannia canicularis and Dendrophaonia querceti; while the latter lacks an article, redlinks create potential for growth

Again, thank you for your contribution to this Wikipedia. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:01, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Peer Review

Overall, I thought your article was very good. One suggestion I have is to improve upon the "Genetic Relatedness" section under "Kin Selection" to make the content of this section more closely related to genetic relatedness. For example, that section currently mentions “lower relatedness” but does not explain what this means or what the relatedness actually is within Vespula maculifrons nests. MadisonPomerantz (talk) 01:15, 21 November 2014 (UTC)