Talk:Ovalipes catharus

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Wiki Education assignment: Advanced Sex, Evolution and Behavior

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 January 2023 and 8 May 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ttbioclass (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Jmt39 (talk) 09:20, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

GA Review

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

Nominator: TheTechnician27 (talk · contribs) 00:34, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Esculenta (talk · contribs) 02:10, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I'll take on this review. Will have comments here within a few days. Esculenta (talk) 02:10, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Here are some initial comments after a preliminary readthrough:

• the leads is too short to adequately summarise the article's contents; see WP:Lead for guidance. In an ironic contrast, the first sentence includes too much information and contains info that could be expanded to three sentences.
• the article is missing a taxonomy section, in which we would find out who named this species and when, maybe a bit about what the original authors said about this species, when/who transferred it to its current genus, what the species name means, if any phylogenetic work (molecular or otherwise) has been done, etc. The two common names and Māori names are only cited in the lead, but MOS:LEADNO tells us "Significant information should not appear in the lead, apart from basic facts, if it is not covered in the remainder of the article", so a Taxonomy section (or "Taxonomy and naming" if you prefer") could be a place to mention these names.
• modern style guides say to avoid starting a section, paragraph (or sometimes even a sentence) with an abbreviation
• the "Appearance" section (which is typically titled "Description" in taxon articles) seems it could use some extra info about the species. Unanswered questions I have about this species after reading it:

• any sexual dimorphism, including abdominal shape/structure differences or size differences?
• detailed morphology: no description of the frontal region, no mention of orbital structure, mouthparts, antennae or antennules, sternum structure, no details about walking leg structure beyond just the paddle-shaped last pair
• life style variations: no description of juvenile appearance; any colour/pattern changes during development? during moulting?
• comparative elements: no comparison to similar species in the region (are there any?); what are the specific key identifying features that distinguish it from other swimming crabs?
• technical details: carapace length-to-width ratios? setae patterns? cheliped dentition?

• I note that source 10 (Fisheries Assessment Plenary May 2023 Volume 2) mentions that two spawning mechanisms have been observed for this species, but this is not in the article
• the treatment of the Australian distribution is extremely minimal, and sourced to a single reference published in 1987. It leaves me wondering about specific states, regions, or coastal areas where they occur, their range limits across the Australian coast, whether this distribution is continuous or patchy, relative abundance, do they occur in different Australian ecosystems (e.g. bays, estuaries, open coast), are they native or possibly introduced, are they commercially fished, are there any relevant Australian fishing regulations, are they present/absent in Australian seafood markets, is there any cultural significance to Indigenous Australians…
• since the species is Australasian endemic, the article should use an appropriate regional spelling (currently a mixture), so will need to adjust molting, color, -ized to -ised, behaviors
• links that might be useful: maroon, eyespot (our article spells it without the hyphen), larvae, migratory, cannibalizing, moulting, commercial fishing, parasitism, sexual maturity, clutch, foraging
• ""Females have also been observed to preen the egg mass during development." is preen the correct word? I thought that was for the birds … maybe groom/tend to/clean/maintain are more appropriate?
• I note that T.A. Osborne's PhD thesis is listed as a source twice (refs #5 and #23)
• perhaps doi:10.1007/BF00392896 has some useful info to add on predation?
• doi:10.1007/s00227-019-3598-x has more info on sound production (rasp, zip and bass)
• Images: All images are appropriate, have suitable captions, and have licences suitable for use on Wikipedia.

Ok, to be clear, many of these are friendly suggestions for improvement, and not necessary for GA promotion (although I think at the minimum a Taxonomy section should be added to meet the "broad coverage aspect"). I'll stop here to give the nominator a chance to review to respond. Will have more comments, including source review, on my next pass through. Esculenta (talk) 19:21, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

@Esculenta: I'll look into all of these shortly, although at a glance, I entirely agree that the 'Taxonomy' section is a glaring omission that I somehow completely forgot about. I'll create one talking about its description, taxonomic placement, and etymology. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 22:58, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

@Esculenta: The taxonomy section is now a work-in-progress, but I think I've expanded the lead enough. I agree it was too bare-bones before. I've read everything else and am starting to work on them (even if they're not part of the GA review, I just want the article to be the best it can be regardless of its assessment), but I was specifically curious about the abbreviations one. I think the abbreviation makes it flow better, and I couldn't find the MoS entry talking about abbreviations starting paragraphs/sections. Edit: regarding Australia: I'm wondering all those things too now, and it seems like the entire extent of this distribution in the literature is "east and south Australia" and "from South Australia to Port Phillip Bay". I didn't expect much, but I didn't expect this agonizingly little; I think the literature simply does not exist. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 22:18, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

In Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Organisms#Abbreviating_names, the MOS suggests to write out the genus in full when the binomial first appears in any section. Other style guides extend that philosophy, suggesting to not abbreviate the first word of a sentence (and paragraph, by extension). I also checked for any literature about its Australian presence, and came up short. I've crossed out the suggestions above that I think have been addressed; are you planning on working on this more? If not, I'll do a source review and try to wrap things up. Esculenta (talk) 17:47, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

@Esculenta: I'll try to add more on the 'Appearance' and see if I can slot in some information about how they use sound. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 05:04, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

@Esculenta: I'm finally done bolstering the article for right now. I'm sorry for taking so long; things have been pretty all-over-the-place for me these last couple weeks, but I feel I have gotten a lot of work done (mostly extraneous to the GA review). The main suggestion I'm still missing is a description of the orbital structure and antennae, but that's just because I don't know how to pick out the most relevant parts of their descriptions in Stephenson & Rees 1968. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 23:26, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I've made some copyedits to the article; please audit and feel free to revert those you don't agree with. I have checked several sources for source-text integrity and didn't find any issues. The only thing that bothers me is the use of the Masters thesis as a source (the PhD theses bother me less so). Other than the two duplicative cites this is used for (and could thus be readily removed), it only cites "Ovalipes catharus is either an osmoconformer or a weak osmoregulator." Is there another source this could be cited to? Then you could list the Richards thesis as "Further reading" if you think it's useful to the reader. Esculenta (talk) 17:46, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find any information about osmoregulation in O. catharus anywhere else. A 1999 version of the Fisheries report confirmed that at the time, there were four known extant sources on respiratory and circulatory physiology (including Richards); only one of these we don't currently use, and that's H.H. Taylor 1990, which is about pressure rather than osmoregulation. The Fisheries source appears to miss a chapter from the book Phylogenetic Models in Functional Coupling of the CNS and the Cardiovscular System (1992) about the dorsoventral muscles of crabs by H.H. Taylor, G. Davidson, L.H. Field, & E.W. Taylor. There doesn't appear to be anything more recent.

What I can at least say in defense of its usage is that it was cited in G. Davidson & H.H. Taylor (1995): "However, a recent study of the branchial microcirculation in O. catharus (see Richards, 1992) has suggested that, at the level of individual lamellae, the ventilation/perfusion geometry may be nearly crosscurrent." and that a personal communication with Richards is later cited in the same paper re: the thickness of the branchiostegites. According to the thesis, Taylor (one of the two foremost experts on O. catharus' circulation alongside G. Davidson) is credited with providing substantial technical assistance during the work. I still understand if a master's thesis is crossing a line, however.

I substantially prefer all of your copyedits, with the exception that I re-added a word attempting to (this time less emphatically) emphasize that the decline in fishing is quite substantial, namely that it's now around 3% of the 1990s peak. I hugely appreciate your help to make the article more readable; I struggle with concision. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 19:23, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Ok, the fact that the work has been cited and acknowledged in peer-reviewed literature by experts in the field provides some validation of its reliability, and your rationale above will provide background info should this source be challenged in the future. I think the article meets the GA criteria; promoting now. Good work! Esculenta (talk) 19:34, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Also pinging Ttbioclass who's almost entirely responsible for the large, well-researched section on mating and reproduction. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 20:28, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Etymology

Original research tells me this is probably related to the Ancient Greek καθαρός ("katharós", meaning pure or clean), but I can't prove it as of yet. Just wanted to give anyone a start place if they wanted to pursue an etymology. Also, it seemed to be called Portunus catharus until at least 1969 (page 204 of this article). However, by 1973, it was in Ovalipes. I can't access this and therefore can't see if there are any sources for when this happened. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 23:13, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Update: It was placed in Ovalipes in p. 224 of a citation called Stephenson and Rees, 1968b, which I believe to be p. 224 of this source. Adding this accordingly. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 21:49, 24 November 2024 (UTC)