Rob Stevenson made another helpful comment with regards to the proposed Audubon Core standard:

"Rather than have Term Name: associatedSpecimenReference as a place for phylocode and a DNA barcode, should the standard support specific fields for a phylocode and a DNA barcode? These seem to be independent approaches that might help anchor or tie together multimedia observations. I can image people taking a picture of an insect and getting a DNA barcode but not having a Taxon Name or a set of characters completed. It seems that molecular data are becoming more and more important and their collection is becoming more and more automated. For microbes, molecular characterization seems to be the main approach uses".

I have not opened an issue for this item because although it is an important issue, I'm not sure it is in scope for Audubon Core. AC imports terms from other vocabularies when possible (notably Darwin Core), but generally only mints terms when they deal specifically with multimedia and when existing vocabularies don't already provide such a term. The issue that Rob raises is a general one that needs to be discussed in the context of how vocabularies such as Darwin Core (which are currently designed primarily to facilitate "flat", specimen-oriented databases) can be adapted for use in more normalized databases which integrate information about many kinds of resources (e.g. specimens, DNA sequences, images, etc. ). This is a topic that is the subject of ongoing discussions with groups such as BiSciCol, RCN4GSC, and the TDWG RDF task group. But it may be too much for Audubon Core to take on at this point in time.

Opinions? Steve