[tdwg-content] FW: biostatus

Kevin Richards RichardsK at landcareresearch.co.nz
Fri Sep 11 00:30:26 CEST 2009


Not sure if Jerry's post got through to the list - it looked like it bounced.  So I am posting again on his behalf...

-----Original Message-----
From: Jerry Cooper
Sent: Friday, 11 September 2009 9:39 a.m.
To: Kevin Richards; Blum, Stan; tuco at berkeley.edu
Cc: tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org
Subject: RE: [tdwg-content] biostatus

A lot of this was thought about when we were working on the IAS Profile schema and associated use-cases ...
http://wiki.tdwg.org/InvasiveSpecies/

Agreed that 'biostatus' (which is an imprecisely defined trem) is a property of a taxon concept.

In many domains there clearly a need to pass information about the presence/absence and indigenous/endemic/introduced/invasiveness etc, status of a taxon, in a defined geograhical area. Of course this is not primary data relating to specimens or observations, but is an aggregate opinion based on evidence available to the compiler. Open any book on any aspect of biogeography and you will find such statements and polygon boundaries.

It is one of the elements gathered by Species2000. It certainly an implicit or explicit component of regional checklists. Our recently funded NZOR project (http://nzor.org.nz) will compile the first digital catalogue of life for New Zealand and a key requirement dicated by our funders (and biosecurity legislation) is accompanying evidence-based statements of the presence or absence of a taxon (concept) in New Zealand political, economic and biogeographical borders.

Such statements only belongs in DwC in a most abstract extension of DwC relating to passing taxon concept related data, and not primary data on collections/observations.

Jerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin Richards
Sent: Thursday, 10 September 2009 4:01 p.m.
To: Blum, Stan; tuco at berkeley.edu
Cc: tdwg-content at 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 at calacademy.org]
Sent: Thursday, 10 September 2009 2:47 p.m.
To: Kevin Richards; tuco at berkeley.edu
Cc: tdwg-content at 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 at lists.tdwg.org [tdwg-content-bounces at lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Kevin Richards [RichardsK at landcareresearch.co.nz]
Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2009 7:08 PM
To: tuco at berkeley.edu
Cc: tdwg-content at 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 at gmail.com [gtuco.btuco at gmail.com] On Behalf Of John R. WIECZOREK [tuco at berkeley.edu]
Sent: Thursday, 10 September 2009 12:52 p.m.
To: Kevin Richards
Cc: tdwg-content at 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
Richards<RichardsK at 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 at gmail.com [gtuco.btuco at gmail.com] On Behalf Of John R. WIECZOREK [tuco at berkeley.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, 10 September 2009 11:53 a.m.
> To: Kevin Richards
> Cc: tdwg-content at 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
> Richards<RichardsK at 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
>>
>
> Please consider the environment before printing this email
> Warning:  This electronic message together with any attachments is confidential. If you receive it in error: (i) you must not read, use, disclose, copy or retain it; (ii) please contact the sender immediately by reply email and then delete the emails.
> The views expressed in this email may not be those of Landcare Research New Zealand Limited. http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz
>

Please consider the environment before printing this email
Warning:  This electronic message together with any attachments is confidential. If you receive it in error: (i) you must not read, use, disclose, copy or retain it; (ii) please contact the sender immediately by reply email and then delete the emails.
The views expressed in this email may not be those of Landcare Research New Zealand Limited. http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz
_______________________________________________
tdwg-content mailing list
tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org
http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content

Please consider the environment before printing this email
Warning:  This electronic message together with any attachments is confidential. If you receive it in error: (i) you must not read, use, disclose, copy or retain it; (ii) please contact the sender immediately by reply email and then delete the emails.
The views expressed in this email may not be those of Landcare Research New Zealand Limited. http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz



More information about the tdwg-content mailing list