[tdwg-humboldt] meeting this week

Tue Jul 11 20:06:18 UTC 2023

Dear All,
I wrote up some ideas.  It proved more difficult than I thought and I am
not sure I captured the issue at the core of the discussion -
How to deal with the lowest level of the event hierarchy

Below is the text but it is also at the bottom of our document here
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r_XMEgB7p7OI7a5Ouq6G9oa7LmQFPcFhZZCLD9gWOIE/edit

Currently the vast majority of records in the GBIF archive contain an
observation of one or more individuals of a single taxon. Many additional
fields in the record, based on the Darwin Core, provide context for the
observation including the observation type, the time and place of
observation, the observer, etc.  At the present time, however, the metadata
do not provide context about whether or not an observation is part of a
systematic set of observations, herein called a survey. A survey is an
approach based on the idea of statistical sampling, whereby an observer is
unable to measure an entire population but instead focuses on a subset of
the population to make inferences about the entire population.

The added scientific value of the survey framework, over just a collection
of unrelate observations indicating present only, is that a scientist can
make inferences about how common or rare a taxon might be (its status) and
over time, measure trends. The basic idea of a survey is intuitive: the
more you look, the more you will find. In the fisheries literature this
idea is called “catch per unit effort”.

The goal of the Humboldt extension is to accurately describe a survey and
its often hierarchical nature. Whereas an observation record is
characterized by general sense of the observation approach (Basis of
Record), a time and a location, a survey has a much more detailed
description of the observation technique(s), and also includes the number
of sampling units employed, a time or time interval (start time and
duration), and a measure of the spatial extent over which the survey was
conducted.

A sampling unit, the finest measurement resolution of a survey, encompasses
a variety of ways of looking for species.  It might include:

A physical sample such as a leaf or a water sample containing molecules of
DNA

One or several sweeps of a net containing a collection of insects

Camera trap – collection of images of mammals

Quadrat  – estimating the percentage of space or numbers of space occupying
organisms such as plants or clams

Bird checklist – list of species of birds observed from a fixed-point

Special considerations arise at the sampling unit level. First a
measurement can detect no individuals or space occupied. In these cases the
data need to reflect this fact with recording  0 for the observation.
Second a measurement might be more than just a number or percentage.  It
might a be compound structure that includes the flowering stage of each
plant in a quadrat or the length and body mass of each insect in the sweep
net sample or the location of each bird along a transect.

On Wed, Jul 5, 2023 at 8:08 AM Dmitry Schigel <dschigel at gbif.org> wrote:

> Stuck in a GBIF meeting, not joining today
>
> DS
>
>
>
> *From:* tdwg-humboldt <tdwg-humboldt-bounces at lists.tdwg.org> *On Behalf
> Of *John Wieczorek
> *Sent:* Tuesday, 4 July, 2023 21:30
> *To:* Humboldt Core TG <tdwg-humboldt at lists.tdwg.org>
> *Cc:* wmh6 at cornell.edu
> *Subject:* Re: [tdwg-humboldt] meeting this week
>
>
>
> Hi folks,
>
>
>
> I am giving the second module of a course on georeferencing tomorrow
> throughout the time of the Task Group call. I haven't mastered the two
> places at once thing, unfortunately.
>
>
>
> Cheers,
>
>
>
> John
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 4, 2023 at 4:27 PM ys628 <yanina.sica at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
>
>
> Lets discuss the Hierarchical Document
> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r_XMEgB7p7OI7a5Ouq6G9oa7LmQFPcFhZZCLD9gWOIE/edit>this
> week!
>
>
>
> With the TDWG 2023 rush, people might not have had time to review or work
> on it. If that is the case, we can have a rather short meeting to agree on
> the next steps.
>
>
>
> See you!
>
>
>
> Yani
>
>
> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r_XMEgB7p7OI7a5Ouq6G9oa7LmQFPcFhZZCLD9gWOIE/edit>
>
> Hierarchical Events in Humboldt Extension for ecological inventories
> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r_XMEgB7p7OI7a5Ouq6G9oa7LmQFPcFhZZCLD9gWOIE/edit>
>
> Properties of hierarchical Events in Humboldt Extension for ecological
> inventories Title: Properties of hierarchical Events in Humboldt Extension
> for ecological inventories Date version issued: 2023-xx-xx Date created:
> 2023-xx-xx Part of TDWG Standard: http://www.tdwg.org/standards/450 This
> ...
>
> docs.google.com
>
>
>
>
>
> Yanina V. Sica, PhD
>
> Lead Data Team
>
> Map of Life <https://mol.org/> | Center for Biodiversity and Global Change
> <https://bgc.yale.edu/>
>
> Yale University
>
> pronouns: she/her/hers
>
> *If you are receiving this email outside of your working hours, I am not
> expecting you to read or respond.*
>
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>
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>

-- 
Robert D Stevenson
Associate Professor
Department of Biology
UMass Boston
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