Talk:Bombus affinis

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mmc7777. Peer reviewers: Mohp7, Roohi.byakod, Flynnt2013.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:13, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Peer review

Hi!

Your article on Bombus affinis is extremely well-written and very informative! I have made some minor improvements by adding lots of hyperlinks and editing some awkward phrasing. For example, I removed the phrase "In terms of foraging habitat" and re-worded that sentence. There were some punctuation mistakes that I fixed as well - for example, there were a couple of spaces before commas and some wrongly italicized words. I changed the formatting of some subheadings as well. Other than grammatical errors, I found that your article contained no major flaws. I did, however, find the following statement under the subheading "Nests" slightly irrelevant: "It was once recorded that a B. affinis nest was found inside an armchair that was abandoned outside." (though I did not remove this statement). Additionally, I would suggest you include a brief description of the coefficient r or at least what formula/theory it comes from.

Overall, you wrote a really great article!

Roohi.byakod (talk) 21:48, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Thank you so much Roohi.byakod! I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you detecting my grammatical errors and fixing them. I have re-read the article again to ensure that there are no more punctuation and formatting issues, such as the aforementioned sentence. Furthermore, I agree with your edits. Thank you for notifying me about the following sentence before making any changes: "It was once recorded that a B. affinis nest was found inside an armchair that was abandoned outside." I went ahead and prefaced the sentence with “An interesting fact about the B. affinis nest is that there was once a nest found inside an armchair that was abandoned outside.” The original sentence pertaining to the r-value previously read: “B. affinis workers share a correlation coefficient of r = 0.75 with full sisters but only r = 0.25 for full brothers,” however, I changed the sentence to the following: “B. affinis workers share a correlation coefficient (or a variable indicating the strength of the relatedness/ degree of relatedness) of r = 0.75 with full sisters but only r = 0.25 for full brother.” In this way, it is much clearer to the reader what the r-value means, and how to interpret the data provided. Thank you again for your recommendations, and please let me know if these changes address your concerns.Mmc7777 (talk) 02:33, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

I really enjoyed your article: It was thorough, descriptive, and flowed nicely. I have made a couple of minor grammatical improvements and changes to improve reading flow and comprehension (for example, I changed the commas setting apart a phrase to parenthesis because the sentence was comma heavy and it got confusing). One suggestion I would make is that you move parts of the taxonomy and phylogeny section into the description and identification section. I understand why you added those sentences about appearance in that section, but I think it may be distracting. I really liked that you separated your description and identification section into morphology and nests. In other articles I have read, including my own, that section sort of blends together. I don't have any additional notes, your article is fantastic! Flynnt2013 (talk) 01:45, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your edits Flynnt2013! I understand your thoughts on incorporating the information from “Taxonomy and Phylogeny” into the “Identification and Description” section, however, because “Identification and Description” is primarily intended for physical traits and observable features, I will refrain from moving the information. After re-reading the “Taxonomy and Phylogeny” section, I’ve determined that most of the information pertains to genetic history and taxonomy, and would be best to categorize the information under this subsection. However, I did go ahead and move the following sentence, from “Taxonomy and Phylogeny” to “Description and Identification” as I agreed that it would fit better under description and identification: “Regardless of the caste within the colony, all members of B. affinis have significantly shorter tongues than any other species of bumblebee.[8] Because of its body size and fury appearance, however, this bee is often confused with other species of bumblebee, such as B. citrinus, B. griseocollis, B. perplexus, and B. vagans.” Altogether, though, thank you so much for your review of my article! Having thoughtful and constructive feedback is very useful. Mmc7777 (talk) 02:33, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Review

The article is very well written and has detailed analysis of each section. The taxonomy and phylogeny section of B. affinis is great. It really helped me understand where this bee falls in relation to other bees in its genus. I added hyperlinks to Bombus, protozoa, and oophagy. However, there were a few grammatical mistakes that I fixed. The article was very well organized and had lots of information in each section. If I had to give any recommendations, I would include some more subsections under behavior and add a section on communication. Mohp7 (talk) 03:55, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Thank you Mohp7! I appreciate you taking the time to add additional links—I also went ahead and added a few additional links to “nectar,” “pollen,” “overwinter,” to address your concerns. Furthermore, I actually do not feel that there is a need for a subsection containing information pertaining to communication as information about pheromone communication is imbedded in the “Reproductive Suppression” section of the article. There is also a shortage of information pertaining to B. affinis communication—however, in the case that additional information becomes available, I will re-consider adding an additional section. Mmc7777 (talk) 02:35, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Does it sting?

I don't see anywhere in the article anything about stinging — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.58.100.105 (talk) 19:06, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Under Genetic relatedness

The article reads:

"While it is advantageous for ratio of males to queens to be 1:1 normally..."

This needs clarification of some sort. Huw Powell (talk) 00:46, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Some changes and suggestions

Overall this is a good article. However, there are some parts that were incorrect that I just deleted. First was a section implying that B. affinis is a social parasite on B. terricola. I believe whoever wrote this confused B. affinis and B. ashtoni. Second was the section on Nectar Robbing. This was presented as something unique to B. affinis, though many other bees, including most (all?) bumble bees do that as well.

One issue that should be corrected in the future is that some parts (e.g. the section on "Kin Selection") present information that is true for the genus Bombus as a whole and are not unique to B. affinis, though as it currently reads it could be interpreted as unique to B. affinis.

Better picture.

Most people seeing a bumblebee are looking down at it. We see the backside. A better picture would show that, with the patch that gives this bee it's common name. SlowJog (talk) 00:29, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Current Range.

The historic range is useful to know. I think the article could be improve it it showed, in addition, the current range. I realize the current range can vary, so how about showing a recent range? For example, "Range in 2020" or other year found in a reliable source. SlowJog (talk) 00:37, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

conservation status

Needs a section on Conservation Status and efforts to protect under the Endangered Species Act. beanstash (talk) 01:36, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Status in Ontario?

The Distribution and habitat section of this article states:

"The only locality within Ontario where the rusty patched bumblebee has been seen in the last five years is Pinery Provincial Park (Lambton County), despite widespread surveys in Ontario."

I went back to a version of this article from 18 September, 2013, and found, except for some typographical adjustments, that same sentence.

Is it still found within Pinery? From what I've read , it's not been found anywhere in Ontario, including Pinery, since 2009. If that's correct, perhaps the sentence should change to state that rather than "in the last five years", which sadly will just continue to become more out-of-date. Triopsman326 (talk) 18:32, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

A fair enough point; I've edited it to reflect the last known sightings, rather than an ambiguous claim of recency. There are no post-2009 sightings from Ontario in either iNaturalist ([1]) or Discoverlife ([2]). Dyanega (talk) 19:10, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

References