I've been struggling with this issue for over 10 years now. I have yet to find an elegant solution. What it boils down to is something along the following:
According to [SourceReference], the status of Taxon [Taxon Concept Circumscription] at locality [Location Circumscription] during/at [Time/Time Span] is: "X"
The SourceReference is impoprtant, because it says who asserted this "biostatus" for this taxon at this locality.
Kevin is right that most people think of these sorts of status as being a function of a Taxon Concept, whereas individual organism records provide evidence (e.g., for presence at Time "T").
Kevin's earlier comment about a temporal component is also relevant, as the status can change over time.
The problem with "X" is that some people think of it as present/absent/abundant/rare/etc.; some think of it in terms of origin as per Kevin's emails (introduced/native/etc.); and some think of it from a biogeographic perspective (endemic/naturalized/etc.); and other terms can also be used (extinct/endangered/vagrant/established/etc.). Sometimes the purposes are mixed, and are not mutually-exclusive (e.g. a taxon can be present, introduced, and established at the same time; or it can be absent, endemic, and extinct at the same time).
I think this sort of information is important, but I think it requires a lot more thought/discussion before it can be encoded within DwC.
Aloha, Rich
-----Original Message----- From: tdwg-content-bounces@lists.tdwg.org [mailto:tdwg-content-bounces@lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Kevin Richards Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2009 6:01 PM To: Blum, Stan; tuco@berkeley.edu Cc: tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] biostatus
Absolutely, the invasive species people need to have their input here. Invasive species data is a great use case of biostatus data.
There should be allowance for invasive attributes in the new Darwin Core, considering the invasive species group attempted to extend darwin core previously.
I do believe biostatus applies to Taxon Concepts, not specimens (if that was what you were implying Stan), as you cannot really say that the specimen itself is invasive - it is the concept you have identified it to that can be deemed invasive, surely.
Specimens can provide a "present" biostatus, but not "absent", nor biostatus origin, such as "exotic". So they are a source of biostatus data, but I dont think they are objects that biostatus is strictly attributed to.
Kevin
From: Blum, Stan [SBlum@calacademy.org] Sent: Thursday, 10 September 2009 2:47 p.m. To: Kevin Richards; tuco@berkeley.edu Cc: tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org Subject: RE: [tdwg-content] biostatus
I don't know what the current thinking is regarding the invasive species work and the DwC, but what you're asking for, Kevin, seems to me to be a summary judgement about the occurrence (presence) of a species in a geographic region. I think individual organism occurrence records (note I don't use species occurrence) can be tagged with an attribute indicating that the record can be used for distribution analysis (but that may need to be further refined into native, naturalized (=invasive?), and cultivated/captive).
I think the invasive species folks need to weigh in here about their use cases: data they want to analyze about organisms, versus summary statements they want to make about taxa.
My two cents,
-Stan
From: tdwg-content-bounces@lists.tdwg.org [tdwg-content-bounces@lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Kevin Richards [RichardsK@landcareresearch.co.nz] Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2009 7:08 PM To: tuco@berkeley.edu Cc: tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] biostatus
I was just thinking to that the "locality" type component should be influenced by other geo components within TDWG - ideally it probably should be linked to TDWG regions, dublic core, ISO, or other vocab?
Also, there is probably a time element in this. But I don't think we need to go there. :-)
Kevin
From: gtuco.btuco@gmail.com [gtuco.btuco@gmail.com] On Behalf Of John R. WIECZOREK [tuco@berkeley.edu] Sent: Thursday, 10 September 2009 12:52 p.m. To: Kevin Richards Cc: tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] biostatus
Makes sense, but need a "second" of the motion to include.
On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 5:21 PM, Kevin RichardsRichardsK@landcareresearch.co.nz wrote:
Yes, thats a good start, however, biostatus is a more
complicated topic than that, eg whther it is "native" may depend on the region you are looking at - so region data needs to be included, and whether it is present or not also is another important piece of data.
biostatus is also really a name/concept oriented piece of
data, not specimen/occurrence. So maybe useful to have as domain (RDF) independent??
So I suggest a "class" fro biostatus that includes: Biostatus (eg Endemic, Indigenous, Exotic) BiostatusOccurrence (eg Present, Absent) BiostatusRegion (eg, New Zealand)
so you could have biostatus about a taxon in NZ like "Aus bus" has biostatus in NZ, Exotic and Present and a more lacalised
biostatus for
a region of NZ, eg "Aus bus" has biostatus in Canterbury NZ, Exotic and Absent
Make sense?
Kevin
From: gtuco.btuco@gmail.com [gtuco.btuco@gmail.com] On
Behalf Of John
R. WIECZOREK [tuco@berkeley.edu] Sent: Thursday, 10 September 2009 11:53 a.m. To: Kevin Richards Cc: tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] biostatus
Hi Kevin,
Not exactly sure what is meant by biostatus given what you have written, but have a look at the term establishmentMeans (http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/index.htm#establishmentMeans)
and see if
that is the same or similar.
John
On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 4:46 PM, Kevin RichardsRichardsK@landcareresearch.co.nz wrote:
This is a bit out of the blue, and I haven't had the
chance to look
into it fully, but...
is there allowance for Biostatus in the new Dariwn Core format?
An imprtant, and common field - ie Biostatus occurrence, locality, and status, eg "Present Indigenous"
Kevin
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