User:Niemolej/sandbox

Individual Assignments

Week 2: Evaluate Wikipedia

The article is part of the WikiProject pages for food and drink as well as the one for fishes. Most of the information that was presented within the article was relevant to the subject of lampreys. However, there were a couple of statements that were included in the "As food" section such as the inclusion of how fond of lampreys King Henry I was, and whether or not eating lampreys was the cause of his death. Although interesting, I found this statement slightly distracting. The article was neutral in its tone and did to clearly show any bias towards one side or another. In the talk page it would appear that there is a large amount of people checking sources to make sure that the information represented on the page is actually correct and suggesting edits to fix any errors that may be present, or discuss for example the possible ways in which to present the classification of the lamprey species. At times the article seemed rather unorganized in how the information is represented, with some pieces of information being better suited to other paragraphs or sections. Additionally, upon closer inspection, a few of the citations linked to news articles from outlets such as the L.A. times and CNN, which summarize the scientific articles form which these conclusions were originally drawn.

In addition, it would be greatly beneficial to have an image depicting lamprey anatomy in more detail than the extremely basic one provided, but less specific in who is able to interpret it than the cross-sectional view already provided. All of the links that I had sampled appeared to work, with the addition of relevant wiki pages being linked, with a few exceptions being that there are at this point no pages existing on these topics.

Week 3: Add to an Article

Changes made:

• copy edits of sentences for clarity
• added link to reproductive isolation

Lampreys live mostly in coastal and fresh waters and are found in most temperate regions except those in Africa. Some species (e.g. Geotria australis, Petromyzon marinus, and Entosphenus tridentatus) are known to travel significant distances in the open ocean, as evidenced by their lack of reproductive isolation between populations. Some species are found in land-locked lakes. Lamprey larvae (ammocoetes) have a low tolerance for high water temperatures, which may explain why they are not distributed in the tropics.

Lamprey distribution may be adversely affected by overfishing and pollution. In Britain, at the time of the Conquest, lampreys were found as far upstream in the River Thames as Petersham. The reduction of pollution in the Thames and River Wear has led to recent sightings in London and Chester-le-Street.

Distribution of lampreys may also be adversely affected by dams and other construction projects due to disruption of migration routes and obstruction of access to spawning grounds. Conversely, the construction of artificial channels has exposed new habitats for colonisation, notably in North America where sea lampreys have become an introduced pest in the Great Lakes. Active control programs to control lampreys are undergoing modifications due to concerns of drinking water quality in some areas.

Original:

Lampreys live mostly in coastal and fresh waters, although some species (e.g. Geotria australis, Petromyzon marinus, and Entosphenus tridentatus) travel significant distances in the open ocean, as evidenced by their lack of reproductive isolation between populations. Some species are found in land-locked lakes. They are found in most temperate regions except those in Africa. Their larvae (ammocoetes) have a low tolerance for high water temperatures, which may explain why they are not distributed in the tropics.

Lamprey distribution may be adversely affected by overfishing and pollution. In Britain, at the time of the Conquest, lampreys were found as far upstream in the River Thames as Petersham. The reduction of pollution in the Thames and River Wear has led to recent sightings in London and Chester-le-Street.

Distribution may also be adversely affected by dams and other construction projects disrupting migration routes, obstructing access to spawning grounds. Conversely, the construction of artificial channels has exposed new habitats for colonisation, notably in North America where sea lampreys have become a significant introduced pest in the Great Lakes. Active control programs to control lampreys are undergoing modifications due to concerns of drinking water quality in some areas.

Week 4: Assignment to Group Dissection

Organisms listed in order of preference:

1. Rat: I would be interested in learning how the systems in a common research animal look and function through being able to actively explore the specimen.
2. Iguana: I would be interested in learning about a vertebrate that is not a mammal, and I am especially interested in finding out the different
3. Amia: Although we have had some prior encounters with bowfish, I would really enjoy being able to get a closer look at an an organism that has been mentioned a few times in our course so far.

Possible other pages to Edit:

• Assuming the species of the iguana that will be provided in lab will be a green iguana, I would edit the morphology section of the Green iguana page section on morphology possibly using photos that would be taken in lab.
• In the Rat page I would like to find citations for some of the statements that are made throughout the article, as there seem to be many missing citations throughout the article.
• In the Amia page there was a list of species within the Amiiforms, this list is not really descriptive of the individual species listed. If possible I would like to add more information concerning the status of the species, possibly even in table form.

Group Assignments

Week 5: Finding Your Sources

Group work can be found at User:Armystud77/sandbox

Week 6:

• Currently planning to add images from our dissections to show organs and internal features.
  • Ideally, if possible, to find skeletal anatomy

Week 8: Continued Drafting

Conservation

The green iguana is listed within Appendix II by CITES, indicating that it is beneficial to regulate trade of this species to ensure that the species does not become threatened. In addition, the green iguana is listed as Least Concern by the IUCN, with a mention of habitat depletion from development being a possible concern for green iguana populations in the future. Historically green iguana meat and eggs have been eaten as a source of protein throughout their native range, and are prized for their alleged medicinal and aphrodisiac properties. Efforts to raise green iguanas in the past to raise green iguanas in captivity as a food source in an attempt to encourage more sustainable land use in Panama and Costa Rica. Methods of conservation that have been used to preserve and reinforce iguana populations include captive breeding programs, and headstarting, a practice in which young individuals that are either wild caught or raised in captivity are introduced to an area of interest.