Talk:Pieris rapae

Life cycle and behavior section added

Hi, I am working on this page for the Behavioral Ecology class at Washington Unversity in St. Louis. I just added much information on habitat, life cycle, and behavior. look over and let me know how to improve the page more.128.252.176.133 (talk) 04:11, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

I organized the Host selection section by adding a number of subheadings. Generally large chunks of text are harder to read and are not supported in Wikipedia so hopefully this will help the overall flow of the article. I also made the Predation section a major heading and created the Parasites subheading. I contributed some information on the parasites but there is still room for improvement. Maximilianzhang (talk) 21:01, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Comments

Generally, you should stick to using either the singular or plural form of the butterfly (when talking about general behavior as a species) and sticking to it throughout the article. You seem to use them interchangeably. Because the article begins with using the singular form, I started converting plural forms (they, caterpillars, etc) into singular forms (it, the caterpillar). I'm pretty sure I caught all of the disparities up until the courtship and reproduction subsection. Please double-check to make sure they were all corrected, and then go on to correct those in the last two subsections of the article.

I went ahead and moved the list of host plants out of the paragraph discussing eggs because I didn't think it belonged there. Are these host plants only for the egg or during all stages of the life cycle? If the former, it should be moved back into the paragraph it was originally located and it needs to be clarified that the plants listed are only hosts for the egg stage. Also, there is a sentence on host plants in the courtship and reproduction subsection which seems a little off-topic.

In the paragraph dedicated to eggs, you mention that the butterfly will lay eggs singly on plants, but later you contradict yourself by saying "females tend to lay fewer eggs on plants in clumps than on isolated plants." Please check which one is correct and edit accordingly! (Or clarify the sentence.) I didn't do much in the way of reorganizing your topics, but you might want to think about how to best maximize the flow of your article in the future.

A lot of great content has been added. Great job! Thatgirlnamedsofa (talk) 07:23, 9 October 2013 (UTC)thatgirlnamedsofa

Peer Review:

1.The first 7 sentences in the Feeding section are concluded with once citation to reference number 5. Is all that information from the same reference? If so, it would be best to add more citations in that piece of text, especially because the sentences cover a wide range of topics (it states the species is gregarious, then moves on to larval food supply.)

2.The courtship and reproduction section is kind of small and I thought it might be interesting to expand it if there are any findings about paternal vs. maternal investment and how that effects courtship and reproduction.

3.I also just added the course banner to the talk page.

It would be really interesting to see what other information is out there about this species. This article looks good! Amruthapk (talk) 03:27, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Overall, I found the article very interesting and informative. I only have a few comments. Most of the things I noticed had to do with citations and references, i.e. citations and references need to be added/replaced in certain sections, so just watch for that. I also moved some things around. I put the first paragraph of the "Life cycle" section in the "Distribution and habitat" section and I put the second paragraph in the "Host selection" section. I thought that they had more to do with those subjects rather than the butterfly's life cycle. I also think that maybe some of your subheadings under Behavior and ecology should become regular headings. It makes the section as a whole seem long and less organized. Great work! Morganclem (talk) 20:06, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

I just made some general writing and grammatical edits. Overall, I agree that the article looks pretty good. Ashleynlin (talk) 20:07, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Your contributions to this page are very well done and informative, both in regards to behavior and otherwise. Your sections on Description, Distribution and habitat, and Life cycle are particularly excellent for trying to achieve good article. The only thing I would say is that your intro section needs additions that summarize your article as a whole. I was given this link when my article was reviewed and although it is quite extensive I find it helpful for achieving a "good article" intro. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section Morganclem (talk) 02:55, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Control?

I believe there should be a section discussing ways to control them in your garden. Kevink707 (talk) 21:02, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Believe away. Rob (talk) 11:13, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

File:Pieris sp 3.jpg to appear as POTD soon

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Pieris sp 3.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on November 29, 2011. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2011-11-29. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :) Thanks! howcheng {chat} 18:36, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Picture of the day

The Small White (Pieris rapae) is a butterfly species native to Europe, North Africa, and Asia. It has also been accidentally introduced to North America, Australia, and New Zealand, where it has become a pest on cultivated mustard family crops.Photo: JJ Harrison

Edit

I added a few things to the lead section and had a few grammatical changes with added links. 128.252.176.113 (talk) 19:44, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Unusual Flight Pattern

This butterfly/moth has an unusual, extraordinary, sharply abrupt and angular flight pattern, unlike any other flying life-form to my knowledge. No man-made aircraft could even come close to imitating it. Is anything known from research on this flight pattern? Any studies or research yet? Starhistory22 (talk) 07:21, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Pints?

Re "tiny black pints" if that is some technical term can it be linked to something that explains it, if it should be pins or points then can someone correct it? Ta muchly ϢereSpielChequers 23:30, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

It's been nearly a decade. I've changed it to spots. ϢereSpielChequers 22:47, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Pieris rapae/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Information exists, needs to get more detailed. also acknowledge that the butterfly exists all around the world and has a different flight time in each area.

Last edited at 01:52, 1 January 2012 (UTC). Substituted at 02:57, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

General Comments

The language maintained throughout the article is neutral and precise. Moreover, the subcategories for behavioral content allows for a better understanding of different behavioral patterns as well as how they connect with each other. I was most interested in the explanation of ‘drumming’ by females upon landing on a leaf to understand how suitable the plant might be for egg deposition. I also ponited out a few sections that I think can broaden the scope of this article, but these are absolutely open to debate. 1) The section on courtship and reproduction is limited. I think that reinforcing it with content on mating rituals or strategies males use to attract females can provide more information on sexual selection in this species. 2) Although strategies to avoid predation are noted for caterpillars, the article does not reference survival strategies that the butterfly might use to counteract predation. It would be helpful because predation may play into some of the phenotypic and behavioral characteristics exhibited by these butterflies. 3) The article mentions memory in butterflies’ adult feeding patterns, which could be expanded in a separate category. Specifically, the concept of memory in location can play into butterflies’ strategies toward resource competition as well as a potential application of the ideal free distribution.

J.Prakash2344 (talk) 12:39, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

General Thoughts and Improvements

The strengths of this entry are that it is relatively complete and that it is broad in its coverage of behavioral information, such as feeding, mating and reproduction, host selection, and larval growth. I found the two-fold purpose of mustard oil on the host plants to be very interesting because the oil both repulses birds from eating the larva as well helps female butterflies locate the host plant during reproduction. 1) One general category that could be improved is the mating system of Pieris rapae because the closest section relating to mating systems is the Courtship and reproduction section. This section was limited in giving a detailed scientific explanation of the courtship process; it features five choppy sentences that use language too simplistic and colloquial to describe the more complex mating behavior. 2) Another area that could have been expanded on is the effect of weather on egg-laying behavior. Since it states that weather (especially rain) heavily impacts where eggs can be laid, it would have been interesting to see how that affects the distribution and habitat of the butterfly. 3) Lastly, the entry fails to elaborate on the defense mechanisms of the adult butterfly (it does however mention the mechanism for the caterpillar). Since there is a complete section on parasitism, it necessitates a section on butterfly avoidance of predation.

Krecto176 (talk) 04:19, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Rapeseed

Shouldn't the name-related rapeseed be listed on the target plants list? Jidanni (talk) 02:03, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Naming

Dispute common naming in NZ, known also as cabbage butterfly 222.153.71.179 (talk) 05:57, 4 February 2024 (UTC)