Talk:Desert pupfish

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 August 2021 and 25 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Nhwon19, Czl1028.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 19:59, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Major edits on 3 Oct 2013

Major edits were made to this organism page for a term assignment (see banner).

In the first of at least two major overhauls, I added on large section title "Biology and ecology." This section incorporates the previous "Biology" section and expands upon it greatly.

Additions of note:

• Motor patterns
• Reproductive behavior
• Feeding
• 10 respectable sources

Additions/expansions needed:

• Extreme conditions (working title)

• needs much more information and a better title ("Survival in extreme conditions"?)

• Breeding
• Aggression
• Habitat
• Description
• Management factors

Also required:

• complete overhaul of previous sources
• additional images
• chart for mating behavior (need permission from Barlow)

Bakerb4379 (talk) 07:54, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

General Suggestions on Major Edits

The heading "Biology and ecology" could be changed to "Behavior and Ecology".

In the motor patterns section describing tilting and nipping, you might want to link or explain what you mean by substrate.

The information about sexual preferences, canabalism, and nest parasitism could be put under the reproduction heading. The "Reproduction" section could be renamed "Reproduction and Parenting Behavior". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Batoburen (talk • contribs) 22:12, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Edit summary and comments on Major edits

• I changed "somewhat" to "seemingly."
• Motor Patterns section can be improved by changing the organization. While bullet points are effective for providing a list of elements, the list of motor patterns is not as informative as the context in which each motor pattern occurs. The information in the Motor Patterns section can better be explained in a paragraph that describe which behavior they are involved in or what the significance is. Grouping them into different behaviors they are related to, such as foraging and reproduction, would also help.
• Motor patterns related to reproduction are repeated in the Reproduction section. Allasse0927 (talk) 22:01, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Major edits on 24 Oct 2013

In an ongoing attempt to bring this article to GA status, I have added the following:

• Taxonomy and phylogeny
• Breeding
• Extreme conditions
• Various images
• Sources

I have also rewritten/changed:

• Description
• Habitat and distribution
• Management factors
• Previous source.

I have relocated

• Diet

Possible areas of further improvement:

• Add more images, specifically of mating
• Perhaps remove motor patterns and embed those definitions within the Mating section. If so, it would allow for the relocation of Breeding above Mating.
• Make a distribution map. I am unsure if this is necessary, as I have added a distribution map form USGS, though it does not match the maps of other GA (I.e. one like this)
• I have not evaluated the introductory summary at all.

Bakerb4379 (talk) 22:44, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Peer Review

General:

• Add more links to other Wikipedia articles
• No obvious grammatical errors. Well-written.

VAleles (talk) 23:10, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Edits/Comments

• This looks like a pretty nice article already!
• Maybe the addition of a few links like to spawn (biology) would be helpful for users to branch out and learn more about a topic
• Edited a tiny bit of grammar
• Inclusion of the distribution map is pretty cool and helpful for researchers
• Overall, this article is very well-written and nice, amazing job!

MLiu19 (talk) 23:44, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Edits

1) "Furthermore, though pupfish may engage in filial cannibalism, males have been observed to distinguish between eggs fertilized by themselves and by other males using olfactory cues. This behavior has been suggested as an analogue to the rejection of alien eggs by avian victims of nest parasitism." --> "Furthermore, though pupfish may engage in filial cannibalism, males have been observed using olfactory cues to distinguish between eggs fertilized by themselves and those fertilized by other males. This behavior has been suggested to be an analogue to the rejection of alien eggs by avian victims of nest parasitism."

2) "Sidling by the male causes the female to s-shape, which causes to male to s-shape and concurrently wrap his anal fin around the female’s vent." --> "Sidling by the male causes the female to form an S-shape, which causes the male to also form an S-shape and concurrently wrap his anal fin around the female’s vent.?

3) "Though the pair usually separates to leave one fertilized egg in the substrate, the female will very occasionally immediately s-shape and both fish will again perform the sequence through jerking." --> "Though the pair usually separates to leave one fertilized egg in the substrate, the female will very occasionally immediately form an S-shape and both fish will again perform the jerking sequence."

4) "Though they may breed during their first summer, most pupfish do not reproduce until their second summer." --> "Though they may start to breed during their first summer, most pupfish do not reproduce until their second."

5) "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 desert pupfish has been noted to be more abundant in environments with high vegetative cover, pH and salinity, and low dissolved oxygen and sediment factors, thus suggesting that living in extreme conditions allows them to survive in environments that are hostile to invasive or nonnative fish." — Preceding unsigned comment added by W.lin17 (talk • contribs) 04:43, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Cyprinodon macularius/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

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

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

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

Done

• 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

If this is so, then you must log the permission for using the image with OTRS. You'll find instructions for doing so at Wikipedia:COPYREQ. -- Yzx (talk) 05:38, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

-Requested

-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

Non-commercial (NC) images are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Copyright and licensing. -- Yzx (talk) 05:38, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

-Noted.

• 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

-Status is detailed in 1994 IUCN Redlist of Threatened Animals, but it does not show up on their current website. Is it acceptable to cite the book? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bakerb4379 (talk • contribs) 22:30, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

• 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"

-Done

• delta and basin should be linked

-Done, in the intro paragraph

• 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

-Done.

• 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"

-I do, and done.

• caudal peduncle should be linked

-Done

• The profile of the desert pupfish is smoothly rounded -- I assume you mean the dorsal profile?

-Yes. Can you tell I'm new to fish? Done.

• tricuspid should be linked or explained

-Done

• The distribution map should specify that it's the US distribution, since it excludes Mexico

-Done

• The map caption shouldn't have C. macularius bolded

-Done

• salinity, oxygen, substrate, benthic, and algae should be linked

-Done

• however, the desert pupfish has a smaller distribution than previously considered. -- awkward phrasing
• extant should be linked

-Done

• omnivore should be linked

-Done

• What is a "shallow zone"? Does this just mean shallow water or is it something more specific?

-Simply shallow water. Clarified.

• 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)

Comments

Hello, I am new to Wikipedia and am participating in an article review as part of an undergraduate course. Are all of the motor patterns from a single source, reference number 20? I am not sure if this is an issue, but is there a way to make this obvious other than just having one reference at the end of the list? I know that user Yzx would like to see more articles linked in this article; perhaps the motor pattern section could link to "Animal locomotion," which discusses some of the physics of swimming and has a section on locomotion energetics. I changed the first sentence of the motor pattern section with the word "movement" now linking to "Animal locomotion." Feel free to change this if you think there is a better place for it.

I am unsure if anyone is interested in adding more information to the article, but I suggest looking at "Condition status of the endangered desert pupfish, Cyprinodon macularius Baird and Girard, 1853, in the Lower Colorado River Basin (Mexico)" by Ruiz-Campos, G. (2013) and "Distribution, habitat, and conservation status of desert pupfish (Cyprinodon macularius) in the Lower Colorado River Basin, Mexico" by Varela-Romero, A. (2002)

Also, I am not nominating this article for good article status, I have already been notified about the nomination back log. I have not nominated any articles yet and do not plan to do so in the future.

Amruthapk (talk) 02:00, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

reply

Please do not nominate this for GA status. If this is for the wikipedia assignment 9, read the new guidelines as sent out by the course TAs. You are making unnecessary work for the GA reviewers (i.e. several months worth), and you should consider revoking your previous nominations. Bakerb4379 (talk) 01:46, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Response

Hello Bakerb4379, please see my comment above. I know about the backlog and I have no nominations to revoke. Thanks. Amruthapk (talk) 02:02, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Closing statement

It's been almost three weeks since the article was nominated for GA and I've yet to see substantial progress made towards addressing its issues, so thus I must fail the nomination. The main editors are welcome to renominate the article for GA once improvements are made and they are prepared to invest time into addressing reviewer concerns. -- Yzx (talk) 15:23, 15 November 2013 (UTC)