@Tuco,  if one agrees that abundance is a property of a materialSample and not an occurrence, yes.  Donald's examples included "malaise traps, transects, expression of ITS or CO1 from environmental samples" --- to me those all represent sampling and samples.  Yes we have event properties that link events to occurrences.  But the point is that if it were just counts, fine.  But its not.  This is about counts over a specified area.  To me this is a very important point and this pushes us out of "occurrence".  Feel pretty strongly about it, actually. 

@Donald, I resonate with Donald's perspective that what is needed is an ontology where we can represent relationships between classes and properties more effectively for graph traversal, and of course, there are efforts currently being developed to do just that (e.g. the Biocollections Ontology, where this would be a trivial use case).  

Best, Rob


On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 9:10 AM, John Wieczorek <tuco@berkeley.edu> wrote:
@Rob,

Do you think the ratification of a MaterialSample class (and the
associated property materialSampleID) would have any effect on the
viability or definition of an abundance term in Darwin Core?


On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 5:04 PM, John Wieczorek <tuco@berkeley.edu> wrote:
> Not that is is propoer justification, but abundance was recommended to
> be organized within Occurrence (no actual semantic link will be put
> into existence with this proposal) simply because individualCount,
> whose failings inspired the abundance term, was organized in
> Occurrence.
>
> On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 4:57 PM, Chuck Miller <Chuck.Miller@mobot.org> wrote:
>> Although abundance is not “evidence of an occurrence in nature” it is
>> “information pertaining to evidence”, isn’t it?
>>
>>
>>
>> Chuck
>>
>>
>>
>> From: tdwg-content-bounces@lists.tdwg.org
>> [mailto:tdwg-content-bounces@lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Robert Guralnick
>> Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2013 9:37 AM
>> To: Donald Hobern [GBIF]
>> Cc: TDWG Content Mailing List
>>
>>
>> Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] Proposed new Darwin Core terms - abundance,
>> abundanceAsPercent
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>   I agree with Donald here regarding the need for Abundance, but am, to be
>> honest, not quite I understand (or agree) with the logic of the proposal.
>> Abundance is listed as a property of an occurrence, and I wonder if that
>> make sense given the class definition "The category of information
>> pertaining to evidence of an occurrence in nature, in a collection, or in a
>> dataset (specimen, observation, etc.)"  Is abundance "evidence of an
>> occurrence in nature".  To me, abundance is a property of a survey and its
>> associated methodology and is based on multiple occurrences that come from a
>> sample and a definition of extent.
>>
>>
>>
>>   It seems to me to be a bad fit to scrunch abundance into the occurrence
>> class.  I recognize that it might not quite fit anywhere in DwC yet.
>> Wouldn't it be better to wait to see if materialSample is ratified as a
>> class within the Darwin Core?
>>
>>
>>
>> Best, Rob
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 8:01 AM, Donald Hobern [GBIF] <dhobern@gbif.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Thanks, John.
>>
>> You are correct.  I think though that abundance is such a commonly needed
>> property that it would be a mistake not to make it work easily even in
>> Simple Darwin Core.
>>
>>
>> Donald
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Donald Hobern - GBIF Director - dhobern@gbif.org
>> Global Biodiversity Information Facility http://www.gbif.org/
>> GBIF Secretariat, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark
>> Tel: +45 3532 1471  Mob: +45 2875 1471  Fax: +45 2875 1480
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>>
>> From: gtuco.btuco@gmail.com [mailto:gtuco.btuco@gmail.com] On Behalf Of John
>> Wieczorek
>> Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2013 3:48 PM
>> To: Donald Hobern [GBIF]
>> Cc: aaike.dewever@naturalsciences.be; TDWG Content Mailing List
>> Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] Proposed new Darwin Core terms - abundance,
>> abundanceAsPercent
>>
>> Could every concept of abundance be captured in a combination of abundance,
>> abundanceUnit, abundanceMethod?
>>
>> If so, is there justification for creating new terms at all if the concepts
>> can be captured in MeasurentsOrFacts
>> (http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/index.htm#measureindex), which have the
>> following properties?
>>
>> measurementType
>> measurementValue
>> measurementAccuracy
>> measurementUnit
>> measurementDeterminedDate
>> measurementDeterminedBy
>> measurementMethod
>> measurementRemarks
>>
>> The only drawback I can see is that with MeasurementOrFacts you could not
>> share the abunance information in Simple Darwin Core. To understand why, see
>> http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/simple/index.htm#rules.
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 10:50 AM, Donald Hobern [GBIF] <dhobern@gbif.org>
>> wrote:
>>> Thanks - I think I too have missed something.  If we want to make
>>> these terms usable, there needs to be a simple way to get numbers out
>>> of records that can be compared with one another where sampling
>>> methods allow such comparisons.  The suggested plain text examples for
>>> Abundance don't make this possible.  Forcing normalisation into
>>> percentages seems an unnecessary hurdle and risks encouraging the
>>> impression that number of ducks on a reservoir is somehow comparable
>>> with percentage dry mass, proportional expression of CO1 for a
>>> particular species in an ecogenomics sample, or whatever.
>>>
>>> I would much rather we ensured we had a standard, preferred field
>>> which the data publisher can populate directly with whatever number is
>>> the most appropriate expression of the relative abundance in the
>>> sample.  That gives consumers a clear expectation of how to interpret and
>> handle it.
>>>
>>> Donald
>>>
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Donald Hobern - GBIF Director - dhobern@gbif.org Global Biodiversity
>>> Information Facility http://www.gbif.org/ GBIF Secretariat,
>>> Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark
>>> Tel: +45 3532 1471  Mob: +45 2875 1471  Fax: +45 2875 1480
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: tdwg-content-bounces@lists.tdwg.org
>>> [mailto:tdwg-content-bounces@lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Aaike De
>>> Wever
>>> Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2013 8:44 AM
>>> To: tuco@berkeley.edu; TDWG Content Mailing List
>>> Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] Proposed new Darwin Core terms -
>>> abundance, abundanceAsPercent
>>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> As somewhat of an outsider I have another question with regards to the
>>> proposed terms abundance and abundanceAsPercent.
>>>
>>> Is there a specific reason for not adopting:
>>> * the abundance field as a field to store only the value and
>>> * a field abundanceUnit/abundanceType to specify whether the value is
>>> in % of species, % of biovolume, % of biomass, individuals/l,
>>> ind./m^2, ind/m^3, ind./sampling effort,...(instead of having a field
>> specific for %)?
>>>
>>> Maybe this has been discussed during the hackathon and I missed it in
>>> the report?
>>>
>>> Thanks for considering this question.
>>>
>>> With best regards,
>>> Aaike
>>>
>>> John Wieczorek wrote:
>>>> Dear all,
>>>>
>>>> GBIF has just published "Meeting Report: GBIF hackathon-workshop on
>>>> Darwin Core and sample data (22-24 May 2013)" at
>>>> http://www.gbif.org/orc/?doc_id=5424. Now that this document is
>>>> available for public reference, I would like to formally open the
>>>> minimum 30-day comment period on two related new terms proposed
>>>> during the workshop and defined in the referenced document.
>>>>
>>>> The formal proposal would add the following new terms:
>>>>
>>>> Term Name: abundance
>>>> Identifier: http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/abundance
>>>> Namespace: http:/rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/
>>>> Label: Abundance
>>>> Definition: The number of individuals of a taxon found in a sample.
>>>> This is typically expressed as number per unit of area or volume. In
>>>> the case of vegetation and colonial/encrusting species, percent cover
>>>> can be used.
>>>> Comment: Examples: "4 per square meter", "0.32 per cubic meter",
>>>> "24%". For discussion see
>>>> http://code.google.com/p/darwincore/wiki/Occurrence (there will be no
>>>> further documentation here until the term is ratified) Type of Term:
>>>> http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#Property
>>>> Refines:
>>>> Status: proposed
>>>> Date Issued: 2012-03-01
>>>> Date Modified: 2013-09-25
>>>> Has Domain:
>>>> Has Range:
>>>> Refines:
>>>> Version: abundance-2013-09-25
>>>> Replaces:
>>>> IsReplaceBy:
>>>> Class: http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/Occurrence
>>>> ABCD 2.0.6: not in ABCD (someone please confirm or deny this)
>>>>
>>>> Term Name: abundanceAsPercent
>>>> Identifier: http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/abundanceAsPercent
>>>> Namespace: http:/rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/
>>>> Label: Abundance as Percent
>>>> Definition: 100 times the number of individuals of a taxon found in a
>>>> sample divided by the total number of individuals of all taxa in the
>>>> sample.
>>>> Comment: Examples: "2.4%". For discussion see
>>>> http://code.google.com/p/darwincore/wiki/Occurrence (there will be no
>>>> further documentation here until the term is ratified) Type of Term:
>>>> http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#Property
>>>> Refines:
>>>> Status: proposed
>>>> Date Issued: 2012-08-01
>>>> Date Modified: 2013-09-25
>>>> Has Domain:
>>>> Has Range:
>>>> Refines:
>>>> Version: abundanceAsPercent-2013-09-25
>>>> Replaces:
>>>> IsReplaceBy:
>>>> Class: http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/Occurrence
>>>> ABCD 2.0.6: not in ABCD (someone please confirm or deny this)
>>>>
>>>> The related issues in the Darwin Core issue tracker are
>>>> https://code.google.com/p/darwincore/issues/detail?id=142
>>>> and
>>>> https://code.google.com/p/darwincore/issues/detail?id=187
>>>>
>>>> If there are any objections to the changes proposed for these new
>>>> terms, or comments about their definitions, please respond to this
>>>> message. If there are no objections or if consensus can be reached on
>>>> any amendments put forward, the proposal will go before the Executive
>>>> Committee for authorization to put these additions into effect after
>>>> the public commentary period.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>
>>>> John
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> tdwg-content mailing list
>>>> tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org
>>>> http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content
>>>
>>> --
>>> Aaike De Wever
>>> BioFresh Science Officer
>>> Freshwater Laboratory, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences
>>> Vautierstraat 29, 1000 Brussels Belgium
>>> tel.: +32(0)2 627 43 90
>>> mobile.: +32(0)486 28 05 93
>>> email: <aaike.dewever@naturalsciences.be>
>>> skype: aaikew
>>> LinkedIn: <http://be.linkedin.com/in/aaikedewever>
>>> BioFresh: <http://www.freshwaterbiodiversity.eu/> and
>>> <http://data.freshwaterbiodiversity.eu/>
>>> Belgian Biodiversity Platform: <http://www.biodiversity.be>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> tdwg-content mailing list
>>> tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org
>>> http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
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