This is a tough list to join – lots of specialized vocabulary and concepts (its purpose of course)

 – I’ve been ”lurking” awhile, and this is the first time I think I understand and might have something small to add from the live collections point of view.

Speaking from 30+ years at ISIS working with biodiversity data from 800+ institutions (zoos, aquariums, etc) on live animal individuals and groups,

I’d expand Steve Baskauf’s comment to say people need BOTH the ability to handle individual animals (a wolf) and ALSO the situation

Where your data does not distinguish individuals but you track a group identity and some kind of count (a wolf pack… we do that, and/or by life stage, and/or by sex).

Some live fish can be practically tracked as individuals, and sometimes obviously not because there are ~5000 in that tank. Some of our groups are

too big to count individuals even as estimates (beehives, ant colonies), so we change the units and count colonies.

I hope this was faintly relevant and look forward to meeting more of you in person when opportunity allows,

Nate Flesness

Director of Science

International Species Information System (ISIS)

www.isis.org