Stan wrote:
What happened to changing the term to organism? I think the word organism, at least strictly speaking, is closer to our intention than individual.
I agree, but John pointed out that we already have individualID and individualCount -- it would be more cumbersome to change those existing terms to organismID and organismCount.
Steve wrote:
I'm not sure that I agree with your analysis that the definition prevents the possibility of making an Identification at a rank less specific than a species. My revised definition says that the Individual should only include groups of organisms that are reliably known to be of a single species - it doesn't say that we need to know what that species is (i.e. an identification to genus or family can be made with the hope that someone down the line would be able to refine the identification to species).
I agree on this point. There are two possible meanings to having an Individual identified at a higher rank like the family "Pomacanthidae": 1) "This is a single species within the family Pomacanthidae that I am unable to pinpoint just now"; and 2) "All of these things are in the Pomacanthidae, but I don't know how many species are represented." The former would meet your definition; the latter would not.
Clarification on this point could be added to the comment or the Google Code page, but I don't think there is a problem with the definition per se. However, if there is a consensus that the definition is too restrictive, I would not object to changing the wording of the definition from "species (or lower taxonomic rank if it exists)" to "taxon" if there were clarification added to the comments or Google Code page that Individual was not intended to include aggregations of multiple species.
I still prefer "taxon", but I'm not so keen on revising the definition to indicate the intent that it should be a single species.
I agree that there is a need for a term that represents "collections", "bags", "aggregations", or whatever you want to call an aggregation that includes multiple species. But I have never intended that Individual should be that term. If we expand Individual to include aggregates, then it becomes unusable for its original intended purpose. I would prefer for someone to propose a different term for aggregates of individuals instead of adding that function to Individual. Then define the relationship of this new thing to Individual as a one:many relationship (one aggregation:many Individuals).
I'm not comfortable with that approach. Can you elaborate on this:
If we expand Individual to include aggregates, then it becomes unusable for its original intended purpose.
I don't understand why the original definition hinges on "species". I am especially uncomfortable with an insinuation within DwC that a "spceies" is somehow a special taxon rank, more meaningful than higher ranks. I know many biologists believe this, but many do not (it's a contentious issue). I think DwC should remain agnostic on this point.
I guess what I really need to understand is what are the benefits (from a data exchange perspective) for representing Individuals as only those sets of organisms believed to be circumscribed within a taxon concept of the rank of species or higher.
Thinking about this does raise a slightly related issue, involving the Identification class and the Taxon Class; but I'll include that in a sepaeate posting.
Aloha, Rich