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

[Steve Baskauf]

>> 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
>>     
This is the circumstance where I would call it an "aggregation" (or 
whatever term) and not an Individual. 
>> 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
>>     
That's not true.  Look at this:
http://bioimages.vanderbilt.edu/ind-baskauf/04101
Here is an image from an individual that I know is an Metrosideros 
species. I have identified it to genus but an Metrosideros expert could 
probably identify it to species at a later time.  Your mechanism of 
looking at the taxon rank would not allow such Individuals to be 
separated from an "aggregation" that consisted of biological individuals 
belonging to two different species of Metrosideros.  Click on the 
"Metrosideros [unknown]" link at the top of the page.  You now see all 
of the images I have for Individuals that are in the Metrosideros 
genus.  They are grouped by Individual by the locally unique identifiers 
under the images.  The use case for which I want dwc:Individuals is to 
keep the images from the same individual (or a specimen and an image, or 
two specimens) grouped together.  If I later were able to determine that 
the various Individuals on that page to species, I would assign them to 
a more specific taxon and that identification would automatically be 
applied to all images (or images and specimens or whatever) that I have 
grouped under a single Individual identifier.  Another example is:
http://bioimages.vanderbilt.edu/ind-baskauf/70858
I know its some kind of dicot and therefore have identified it to class 
Magnoliopsida.  When I can identify it to species, I'll apply a more 
precise identification to that individual.  That is different than 
calling some flower garden containing a bunch of dicots an "Individual" 
which would have a taxon rank of class.  I feel strongly that kind of 
thing should be called something different (i.e aggregation or something).

I really feel like "watering down" the meaning of Individual in the way 
that you are suggesting (allowing it to be an aggregation of species or 
whatever you want to call them) is going to defeat the whole purpose of 
why I suggested having the class in the first case.  So if somebody can 
think of an inoffensive way to describe a terminal taxon or species (or 
ssp. or var. if it exists), that is really what I intend for Individual 
to be restricted to.  I'm not proposing the "aggregation" view.

Steve
>> 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
>>
>>
>>     
>
>
> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
> Nico Cellinese, Ph.D.
> Assistant Curator, Herbarium & Informatics
> Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Biology
>
> Florida Museum of Natural History
> University of Florida
> 354 Dickinson Hall, PO Box 117800
> Gainesville, FL 32611-7800, U.S.A.
> Tel. 352-273-1979
> Fax 352-846-1861
> http://cellinese.blogspot.com/
>
>
>
> .
>
>   

-- 
Steven J. Baskauf, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer
Vanderbilt University Dept. of Biological Sciences

postal mail address:
VU Station B 351634
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office: 2128 Stevenson Center
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http://bioimages.vanderbilt.edu

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