User talk:Gavetern

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Hello, Gavetern, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Ian and I work with the Wiki Education Foundation; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.

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If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 02:53, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Review of Wikipedia article: American Kestrel

1) The article has been edited about 500 times since 2007, and continued to be edited regularly. 2) Most discussion consists of explanations of minor comments. Some recent comments concern debates over the former name of the American kestrel, the Sparrow Hawk. 3) Overall, this article is quite comprehensive. I thought it covered much of the important information concerning the American kestrel, and so it is considered “good,” However, not every paragraph has a citation, and one paragraph with multiple body measurements is followed by a list of citations. There should be a more organized way to represent this information. In addition, I found a sentence that appears opinionated. This sentence nods to possible bias in a statement, using the word “likely.” I don’t think uncertain information like this has a place on Wikipedia. 4) I’d like to add information on the physiology of the American kestrel. Luckily, no one has beaten me to it! There is only one sentence about their use in scientific studies tacked on at the end of the article, so I’d like to expound on why they are useful model organisms. I might add information of studies of metabolic rate and stress response.Gavetern (talk) 15:52, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi Nick, thanks for a thorough evaluation of the article on American Kestrel. I will assign it to you for your Wiki work this semester. Rico.schultz (talk) 18:35, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Nick, I see that you have made quite a few changes to the article in the last few days. I have a couple concerns. One is that you have published changes in advance of the peer review step that I had planned for this exercise. Secondly, the series of sentences on scientific findings are in a section on relationship to humans, but I don't really view the studies as representing this subject. Rico.schultz (talk) 16:09, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Comment on changes to allometry article

Nick, I looked over the allometry article but wasn't sure where you had changed anything. I suggest that you also add a bit to the terminology, you could note that another way of referring to the so-called negative allometry of the mouse-to-elephant curve (terminology I dislike because it is confusing) is 'hypoallometry'. I agree with another commentator on this article that the graph in the picture is misleading because it doesn't clearly show that both of the axes are log-tranformedRico.schultz (talk) 13:04, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Nick you need to move your draft article here to your user talk page (right now it is in the talk page of your sandbox) so your taxon teammates can see it!!!!Rico.schultz (talk) 17:11, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Oh I see--this page. Done! Gavetern (talk) 22:54, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Stress Physiology

Weather

American kestrels are often useful in scientific studies on animal physiology, and are typically captured using the bal-chatri method or raised in nest boxes^[1] Kestrel metabolic rate increases in response to rainfall, and at ambient temperatures below about 25⁰ C. Metabolic responses to weather and temperature do not vary, however, with sex.^[2] Kestrels will increase their oxygen consumption, and therefore their metabolic rate in cold and wet conditions to counteract heat loss.^[2]^[3]

Environmental disturbance

American kestrels' response to environmental stress is measured as blood concentration of corticosterone (CORT,) a hormone produced by the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis that releases stored energy for essential body functions. Extended periods of elevated blood CORT levels may direct metabolic energy away from growth and reproduction.^[1] Thus, high levels of traffic disturbance and human development surrounding American kestrel nests are found to increase stress hormones leading to reproductive failure.^[4] Among successful nests, however, nestlings do not typically experience a higher stress response to environmental human disturbance, suggesting that they can tolerate a degree of human activity near the nest.^[1]

Environmental contaminants

Since American kestrels are carnivores, toxic chemical runoff ingested by their prey can concentrate at high levels in their blood. Wild kestrels are subject to immunomodulation, or an altered immune response, to polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), a group of industrial flame retardants that may leach from factories into the environment. When PBDEs accumulate in body tissues of kestrels, the T-cell mediated immune response decreases in efficiency.^[5]

There's definitely a wealth of information here, some of which could benefit from exploring in a bit more detail. I also feel as though this section is based more around conflict with humans, rather than just being a straight physiology section. This is definitely not a bad thing, and could make for an excellent entry to the kestrel page. I would consider re-labeling the section though, as just calling it physiology may be slightly misleading. Consider a title such as "human interaction" or something along those lines. HRCraig (talk) 13:15, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

@Gavetern: Nick, thanks for your thoughtful and constructive comments on Howard's Gentoo penguin contribution. I think the distinction between ionoregulation and osmoregulation is not so important here and either term would be fine. Where the distinction is important is in aquatic organisms such as elasmobranchs that are not osmoregulating but are ionoregulating. Rico.schultz (talk) 13:47, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

References

[1]
Strasser, E.H.; Heath, J.A. (2011). "Effects of developmental conditions on nestling American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) corticosterone concentrations.". General and Comparative Endocrinology 173: 164–170. doi:10.1016/j.ygcen.2011.05.010
[2]
Wilson, G.R., S.J. Cooper, J.A. Gessaman. 2004. The effects of temperature and artificial rain on the metabolism of American kestrels (Falco sparverius). Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, Part A 139: 389–394. doi: 10.1016/j.cbpb.2004.10.009
[3]
Willmer, Pat; Stone, Graham; Johnston, Ian (2009). Environmental Physiology of Animals (2 ed.). Wiley. p. 126. ISBN 9781444309225. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
[4]
Strasser, E.H.; Heath, J.A. (2013). "Reproductive failure of a human-tolerant species, the American kestrel, is associated with stress and human disturbance". Journal of Applied Ecology 50: 912–919. doi: 10.1111/1365-2664.12103
[5]
Fernie, K.J., G. Mayne, J.L. Shutt, C. Pekarik, K.A. Grasman, R.J. Letcher, and K. Drouillard. 2005. Evidence of immunomodulation in nestling American kestrels (Falco sparverius) exposed to environmentally relevant PBDEs. Environmental Pollution 138: 485-493. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2005.04.008