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
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> mobile.: +32(0)486 28 05 93
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