[tdwg-content] biostatus

Richard Pyle deepreef at bishopmuseum.org
Thu Sep 10 06:17:48 CEST 2009 

I've been struggling with this issue for over 10 years now.   I have yet to
find an elegant solution.  What it boils down to is something along the
following:

According to [SourceReference], the status of Taxon [Taxon Concept
Circumscription] at locality [Location Circumscription] during/at [Time/Time
Span] is: "X"

The SourceReference is impoprtant, because it says who asserted this
"biostatus" for this taxon at this locality.

Kevin is right that most people think of these sorts of status as being a
function of a Taxon Concept, whereas individual organism records provide
evidence (e.g., for presence at Time "T").

Kevin's earlier comment about a temporal component is also relevant, as the
status can change over time.

The problem with "X" is that some people think of it as
present/absent/abundant/rare/etc.; some think of it in terms of origin as
per Kevin's emails (introduced/native/etc.); and some think of it from a
biogeographic perspective (endemic/naturalized/etc.); and other terms can
also be used (extinct/endangered/vagrant/established/etc.).  Sometimes the
purposes are mixed, and are not mutually-exclusive (e.g. a taxon can be
present, introduced, and established at the same time; or it can be absent,
endemic, and extinct at the same time).

I think this sort of information is important, but I think it requires a lot
more thought/discussion before it can be encoded within DwC.

Aloha,
Rich

> -----Original Message-----
> From: tdwg-content-bounces at lists.tdwg.org 
> [mailto:tdwg-content-bounces at lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of 
> Kevin Richards
> Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2009 6:01 PM
> 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
> >>
> >
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