Dear All
I am sorry I will not be able to join in today.
During the last week I had hoped to read the marine biology paper I referenced early in the summer but with the start of the semester, COVID, etc.
I did have one point to add and that is effort is not usually reported in Biodiversity database but it is computed for four pieces of information
1. duration of sampling ( number of nights, number of days, minutes, hours, months) 2. spatial extent of sampling (point, transect, area, volume) 3. sampling method (trap, net, person watching and listening, video recording, and a gazillion more) 4. number of sampling units (number of traps, number of nets, number of people in that area over that time duration)
Perhaps it is sufficient for the standard just to say the variables to necessary to compute effort are available. Perhaps that could be checked by machine when data are deposited and a flag set.
The collection event will naturally point to a collection of observations
Hope the meeting is productive.
Rob
Robert D Stevenson Associate Professor Department of Biology UMass Boston