[tdwg-content] tdwg-content Digest, Vol 20, Issue 17

[Dean Pentcheff]

Leveraging off my earlier toss-in of the parent-child collection scheme, let
me toss in this observation.

I'll preface it by saying that although it's a situation we deal with in
reality, my gut impulse is that it should probably _not_ be accomodated by
the "Individual" concept under development.

We have many records for un- or partially-sorted lots of marine invertebrate
samples. Often we can make very rough determinations of what are in those
lots (e.g., we can see that a jar contains ophiuroids, gastropods,
sphaeromatid isopods, red algae, and larval fish). Critically, these are
multiple particular and disjunct parts of the taxonomic hierarchy, not just
a single "highest containing rank" determination.

It turns out to be super-useful to record that very rough determination
because (as alluded to by Rich) we can then appropriately make that jar
available to visitors seeking particular taxa (and save them the trouble of
grubbing through shelves of jars where we already "know" there's nothing of
interest to them).

Right now, we do _not_ conflate this rough determination with a Real
Taxonomic Determination (®™ and all that): they are two completely separate
fields. So to find all the jars we know have ophiuroids, one does indeed
have to search both the real taxonomic determination field as well as the
rough-determination (text) field (if one wants to include unsorted lots in
the quest).

I'm introducing this case more with the idea that it may usefully help
define the outer limits for "Individual" -- something that the "Individual"
concept should _not_ accomodate. I can't really wrap my head around how the
developing "Individual" concept can usefully be mutilated to accomodate this
case.

-Dean
-- 
Dean Pentcheff
pentcheff at gmail.com
dpentche at nhm.org


On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Richard Pyle <deepreef at bishopmuseum.org>wrote:

> > I think if I'm understanding what John wrote,
> > he was going to substitute "taxon" for "species
> > (or lower taxonomic rank if it exists)" with
> > the understanding that Individual is not
> > intended to be used for aggregates of
> > different taxa.  That would solve this problem, right?
>
> It depends on what you mean by "different taxa".  If you are using the word
> "taxa" here to imply "species or lower ranks", than I don't think it would
> solve the problem.  But if you mean it in a generic way, then I'm OK with
> that.  By "in a generic way", suppose I had a trawl sample or a plankton
> tow
> sample that included unidentified organisms from multiple phyla, all of
> which are animals.  I should not be prevented from representing this
> aggregate as an "Individual", with an identification instances linked to a
> taxon concept labelled as "Animalia".  This means the contents of the
> Individual all belong to a single taxon (Animalia), and therefore it does
> not violate the condition excluding aggregates of different taxa. An
> instance of Individual so identified would be almost useless for many
> purposes, I agree -- but it's easy enough to filter such Individuals out by
> looking at dwc:taxonRank of the Taxon to which the Individual was
> identified. Also, it's not useless for all purposes, because a botanist
> would like to know that s/he doesn't have to look through that sample to
> find stuff of interest.
>
> I guess my point is, there should not be any rank-based requirement for the
> implied taxon circumscription of an "Individual".
>
> Rich
>
>
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