I’m glad to see this conversation re-vitalized, as we (Rob Whitton & I) have been thinking a lot about this in our recent discussions concerning BiSciCol, GNUB, etc. I’m on coffee break from virtual attendance at a conference right now, so no time to elaborate, except I think it would be dangerous to accommodate an occurrence as a “species” (or any taxon concept) at a place/time. I know there are plenty of data that effectively are represented as Taxon-at-Event (i.e., occurrence of a taxon at a place and time). However, I think these should all be framed as “Individual-at-Event”, even if “Individual” is nothing more than a GUID to which Taxon identifications can be linked.
I think the hardest part will be to define the allowable scope of “Individual”. In my mind, it should at least span from single organism to multiple organisms up to colony and population; and can be circumscribed by any taxon concept (including “Life”). I have been re-thinking whether “part” should be treated as a separate individual. I used to think yes, but lately I’ve been thinking no.
Aloha,
Rich
From: tdwg-content-bounces@lists.tdwg.org [mailto:tdwg-content-bounces@lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Peter DeVries
Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2011 9:24 AM
To: Nico Cellinese
Cc: tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org List; Paul Murray
Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] DwC Occurrence [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
Hi Nico,
Wouldn't the individual be asserted to be an instance of a species "concept"
For instance:
The species concept http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ses/ICmLC#Species
An individual of that species concept http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ses/ICmLC#Individual
An occurrence that has been asserted to be an occurrence of that species http://ocs.taxonconcept.org/ocs/f522444a-2dd9-400e-be59-47213ef38cb9#Occurrence
Which is documented by this page http://ocs.taxonconcept.org/ocs/f522444a-2dd9-400e-be59-47213ef38cb9.html
Relationships between these entities can be browsed via the Knowledge Base view.
* Note that links on the HTML page will also take you to the views of the different entities in the Knowledge Base.
Also note that someone else could assert that the individual butterfly is actually an instance of a different species concept. One could simply replace these assertions with their own in a separate mapping file, or
with a different predicate. Note the hypothetical links below don't work.
<http://ocs.taxonconcept.org/ocs/f522444a-2dd9-400e-be59-47213ef38cb9#Individual> <bioimages:individualHasStevesSpeciesConcept> <http://lod.bioimages.org/ses/123123#Species>
* We might miss some species occurrence records when we do this, so it would be best to avoid creating a number of basically duplicate concepts especially if they not the same "kind" of concept.
For instance those that are linked to a specific name or classification hierarchy.
Respectfully,
- Pete
On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 6:10 AM, Nico Cellinese <ncellinese@flmnh.ufl.edu> wrote:
I personally like this nicely refined suggestion but to be honest, I can also live with the others previously made. What I don't seem to be able to digest is the notion that same individual will later be equaled by some to a species. That assertion is hard to swallow.
Nico
On May 31, 2011, at 3:44 AM, Paul Murray wrote: