In Audubon Core [1], there are sometimes other terms that are associated with a string term whose purpose is to indicate the controlled vocabulary being used in the other term (e.g. Iptc4xmpExt:CVterm for a controlled value term and ac:subjectCategoryVocabulary to indicate the vocabulary from which the controlled value term comes).  I reviewed the DwC terms and I guess there is no precedent for that kind of thing in DwC.  I suppose if people want to be unambiguous, they should just use URIs.  Unfortunately, I'm not aware of URIs for the terms from various systems of describing biomes.  I suppose someone could mint terms if they cared about this.  Or use ENVO uris.

Steve

[1] http://terms.gbif.org/wiki/Audubon_Core_Term_List_%281.0_normative%29

John Wieczorek wrote: 
On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 4:12 PM, Steve Baskauf
<steve.baskauf@vanderbilt.edu> wrote:
  
The other thing I'm wondering about the values of dwc:biome would be how a
user would indicate the controlled vocabulary one is using.  The ENVO
ontology is mentioned.  Under the scenario of the draft RDF guide, the term
dwcuri:biome would have a URI value of
<http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/ENVO_01000195>.  That would be unambiguous.
However, if dwc:biome is reserved for literal values (as the RDF guide
suggests it should be) then how does a machine know that "flooded grassland
biome" is a label from ENVO and not a literal description of a biome from
the Whittaker, Walter, Bailey, etc. systems which are probably currently in
much wider use than ENVO and therefore likely controlled vocabularies of
choice for many users?
    

A machine will have no way to know from which vocabulary a value for a
property comes unless the value says so. That is common to all terms
that recommend a controlled vocabulary, but do not enforce it. It
would be no different for dwc:biome. The only way to be unambiguous is
to provide an unambiguous value, which, as you noted,
http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/ENVO_01000195 is.

.

  

-- 
Steven J. Baskauf, Ph.D., 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,  fax: (615) 322-4942
If you fax, please phone or email so that I will know to look for it.
http://bioimages.vanderbilt.edu