I am in support of the suggested "group of organism", rather than "set". I don't believe the second sentence means exactly the same thing. From a database point of vue, sometimes, a group of organism will be reported as one observation record, eg "10 Common Redpolls". The meaning of the second sentence is that observations are usually interlinked, eg, the "10 common redpolls and the 5 pine siskins where observed during the same 5 minute sampling period". I'm also quite happy with the other definitions proposed so far. Denis Denis Lepage, Senior Scientist/Chercheur sénior National Data Center/Centre national des données Bird Studies Canada/Études d'Oiseaux Canada PO Box/B.P. 160, Port Rowan, ON N0E 1M0 519-586-3531 ext. 225, fax/téléc. 519-586-3532

-----Original Message----- From: Tdwg-obs-bounces@lists.tdwg.org [mailto:Tdwg-obs-bounces@lists.tdwg.org]On Behalf Of Hannu Saarenmaa Sent: 09 February 2006 5:14 AM Cc: Tdwg-obs@lists.tdwg.org Subject: Re: [Tdwg-obs] On observation definition / moving forward

"set of organisms" doesn't sound very natural to me. What about "group of organisms"? However, doesn't the second sentence covers this anyway?

Hannu

Lynn Kutner wrote:

...

With only comments from Bob & Arthur (thanks!), the latest version of observation definitions is as follows:

"An observation characterizes the evidence for the presence or absence of an organism or set of organisms through a data collection event at a location. Observations are not necessarily independent and could be linked via characteristics such as time, place, protocol, and co-occurring organisms."

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