April 2018 - tdwg-content - lists.tdwg.org

Re: [tdwg-content] If you need something for referring to a population, then it is probably best to do it as a related class
by Nico Franz 05 Jun '25

05 Jun '25

Hello all: I have a few inserted comments, hopefully with some clarifying effect: On 5/4/2011 10:54 AM, Peter DeVries wrote: > Hi Steve, > > I may have overloaded the term specimen to make the explanation easier > to follow. > > A specimen could be an individual or it could be part of an individual. > > To some extent you need to think about how these models will be used. > > If you subscribe to the model that a species is whatever a taxonomists > says it is then it is difficult to make statements like. > > X% of the world's species will be extinct by 2050. > > If you mean a species as defined by the concept documented at this URI > which is supported by these specimens, images, and DNA then you are on > firmer ground. > > Species in the natural world do a pretty good job recognizing those > individuals that are appropriate mates. In other words members of > their own species. > > Are we modeling species or variations in human conceptualizations of > species? > >> Assuming that there was only one individual organism identified >> there is really one one species (or hybrid). > Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Please Nico C., don't take this one up! > > > I stick with this. Assuming you don't have a hybrid individual. That > individual is one species. The fact that human may disagree on what > species it is a human issue. > > Again, Are we modeling species or variations in human > conceptualizations of species? NMF: I believe there is a history of biodiversity database engineering that actually led some people, initially in Australia (Greg Whitbread?) and Europe (Berendsohn's group) to place more emphasis on modeling human conceptualizations of taxa. I understand this happened in the late 80s / early 90s. The motivation was, apparently, that no long-term consensus seemed available to model a single and sufficiently widely accepted taxonomy of, say, Central European vascular plant species or mosses. I believe that projects such as the Euro + Med PlantBase (http://www.emplantbase.org/home.html) are examples of the persistence (success?) of this 20+ year old practice. I think this is the kind of background that Steve is referring to. > > Which of these is of primary importance to decision makers and > non-taxonomist biologists? > Part of the problem with various publications relating to ontologies > and taxonomy is that their species models entail a specific > phylogenetic hypothesis. > > In the real world taxa are not as clean as some would like to make > them out to be. > > Each individual is a unique combination of thousands of separate gene > lineages which often do not follow clean monophyletic paths. > > I would argue that most of those who work with species related data > see them as useful typological constructs which in general follow the > biological species model. NMF: The solution of how to properly model things such as species in RDF, OWL (etc.) should ideally accommodate all "species concepts" (BCS, ESC, PSC, GSC, there's dozens), i.e. it should be neutral towards this issue. The examples below are too simple, ignoring for example cases such as pro parte synonymy, or a concept ("species") that appears unique and monophyletic to one author but (vastly) polyphyletic to another. To do an accurate mapping in that latter case (which is not super-common but it's real), I think one would have to come down on saying we're modeling human conceptualizations. They are not just that, so really it's not a strict dichotomy, meaning that by modeling conceptualizations we do not have to say "the species only exist on our heads", or "well, then anything goes". I agree (sheepishly) that it does come down to what the input data look like, and what the expectations are towards just accommodating the user community versus pushing them in a particular direction. Some of this also on p. 47 of this PDF: https://journals.ku.edu/index.php/jbi/article/view/3927/3852 > > /Aedes triseriatus/ owl:sameAs /Ochlerotatus triseriatus/ > > Others seem to see them as phylogenetic end nodes which entail a > specific phylogenetic history. > > /Aedes triseriatus/ distinctFrom /Ochlerotatus triseriatus/ > / > / > If you are primarily interested in understanding issues of ecology, > disease, diversity and conservation the former model is more > appropriate than the later. > > Respectfully, > > - Pete Regards, Nico Nico M. Franz, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Director, UPRM Invertebrate Collection Department of Biology University of Puerto Rico Call Box 9000 Mayagüez, PR 00681-9000 Phone: (787) 832-4040, ext. 3005 Fax: (787) 834-3673 E-mail: nico.franz(a)upr.edu Laboratory website: http://academic.uprm.edu/~franz/ UPRM-INVCOL: http://uprm-invcol-project.tumblr.com/

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Audubon Core Maintenance Group call on 2018-05-02 at 18:00 UTC
by Steve Baskauf 27 Apr '18

27 Apr '18

The AC Maintenance Group will hold a Google Hangout call on Wednesday, May 2 from 18:00 to 19:00 UTC. The meeting will focus primarily on two issues: looking at the issues in the tracker to decide which have the highest priority, and discussing how to move forward on cleaning up the Audubon Core documentation. The meeting is public and can be joined at this link: https://hangouts.google.com/call/087n5tWXz_8HsEtO0XW4AAEE The meeting time should correspond to 2 PM EDT (US UT-4), 8 PM CEST (Europe UT+2), and 4 AM Thursday, May 3 AEST (Australia UT+10). Check your favorite time zone converter for your local time. -- Steven J. Baskauf, Ph.D., Principal Senior Lecturer Vanderbilt University Dept. of Biological Sciences postal mail address: PMB 351634 Nashville, TN 37235-1634, U.S.A. delivery address: 2125 Stevenson Center 1161 21st Ave., S. Nashville, TN 37235 office: 2128 Stevenson Center phone: (615) 343-4582 https://my.vanderbilt.edu/baskauf/

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Timey-wimey stuff! 4/24 DwC Hour Webinar "The Problem of Time: Dealing with Paleontological and Zooarchaeological Specimens in Darwin Core!
by Deborah Paul 23 Apr '18

23 Apr '18

Darwin Core (DwC) Hour #13 is almost here:The Problem of Time: Dealing with Paleontological and Zooarchaeological Specimens in Darwin Core <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.idigbio.org_conten…>! /When/:*Tuesday, 24 April 2018* /Time/:*1pm Eastern / 5pm UTC* /Where/:https://idigbio.adobeconnect.com/room <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__idigbio.adobeconnect.c…> The temporality of specimens is a quintessential piece of information that undeniably adds research value. Part of what makes specimens so invaluable is the fact that they represent life in a certain form at a particular place and time. However, there are some complications when it comes to reporting and comparing collection dates and the ages or chronology of ‘modern’ specimens to those from paleontological or zooarchaeological relevant time frames. This Darwin Core Hour aims to take a deeper look at some of these complexities, to begin community discussions of how these important data should be portrayed in Darwin Core, and to provide a starting point for these discussions by introducing the Chronometric extension for Darwin Core that is currently under development. However, there are some complications when it comes to reporting the collecting dates versus the ages or chronology of ‘modern’, paleontological, and zooarchaeological specimens, as well as making meaningful comparisons across represented time frames (e.g., modern, archaeological, paleontological). /Presenter/: Laura Brenskelle, University of Florida/Florida Museum of Natural History Please bring or submit questions for open discussions in each webinar:https://tinyurl.com/zja2muz <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__tinyurl.com_zja2muz&d=…> EXTRAS: * Explore the Darwin Core Questions & Answers wiki:https://github.com/tdwg/dwc-qa/wiki <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__github.com_tdwg_dwc-2D…> * See which of your questions have been asked and answered so far:https://github.com/tdwg/dwc-qa/issues <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__github.com_tdwg_dwc-2D…> * Submit your question / volunteer (yourself or someone) to do a webinar on a DwC topic:https://tinyurl.com/zja2muz <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__tinyurl.com_zja2muz&d=…> * See what terms DwC recommends using a controlled vocabulary for:https://github.com/tdwg/dwc-qa/wiki/Controlled-Vocabularies <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__github.com_tdwg_dwc-2D…> * Compare the above to what's actually inside some of the DwC fields that suggest using a controlled vocabulary (data from GBIF, iDigBio, VertNet, and soon ALA):https://github.com/tdwg/dwc-qa/tree/master/data <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__github.com_tdwg_dwc-2D…> Happy Darwin Core and Data Quality, and hope to see you soon! - Deborah Paul, et al from the***Darwin Core Hour Team* /(please kindly excuse cross-postings!) DwC Hour is a regular webinar series brought to you by the Darwin Core Hour Team and members of the iDigBio Data Management Interest Group (DMI). We welcome input for this series from everyone worldwide. We use Adobe Connect for our webinars. Seehttps://www.idigbio.org/wiki/index.php/Web_Conferencing <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.idigbio.org_wiki_i…>for hints on best experience (hint: use headsets!)/ -- -- Upcoming iDigBio Events https://www.idigbio.org/calendar -- Deborah Paul, iDigBio Digitization and Workforce Training Specialist iDigBio -- Steering Committee Member SPNHC Liaison, Member-At-Large and Member International Relations Committee SYNTHESYS3 Representative Institute for Digital Information, 234 LSB Florida State University Tallahassee, Florida 32306 850-644-6366

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