[tdwg-content] Proposed new Darwin Core terms - abundance, abundanceAsPercent

Thu Sep 26 15:48:16 CEST 2013

Could every concept of abundance be captured in a combination of
abundance, abundanceUnit, abundanceMethod?

If so, is there justification for creating new terms at all if the
concepts can be captured in MeasurentsOrFacts
(http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/index.htm#measureindex), which have the
following properties?

measurementType
measurementValue
measurementAccuracy
measurementUnit
measurementDeterminedDate
measurementDeterminedBy
measurementMethod
measurementRemarks

The only drawback I can see is that with MeasurementOrFacts you could
not share the abunance information in Simple Darwin Core. To
understand why, see
http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/simple/index.htm#rules.

On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 10:50 AM, Donald Hobern [GBIF] <dhobern at gbif.org> wrote:
> Thanks - I think I too have missed something.  If we want to make these
> terms usable, there needs to be a simple way to get numbers out of records
> that can be compared with one another where sampling methods allow such
> comparisons.  The suggested plain text examples for Abundance don't make
> this possible.  Forcing normalisation into percentages seems an unnecessary
> hurdle and risks encouraging the impression that number of ducks on a
> reservoir is somehow comparable with percentage dry mass, proportional
> expression of CO1 for a particular species in an ecogenomics sample, or
> whatever.
>
> I would much rather we ensured we had a standard, preferred field which the
> data publisher can populate directly with whatever number is the most
> appropriate expression of the relative abundance in the sample.  That gives
> consumers a clear expectation of how to interpret and handle it.
>
> Donald
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Donald Hobern - GBIF Director - dhobern at gbif.org
> Global Biodiversity Information Facility http://www.gbif.org/
> GBIF Secretariat, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark
> Tel: +45 3532 1471  Mob: +45 2875 1471  Fax: +45 2875 1480
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: tdwg-content-bounces at lists.tdwg.org
> [mailto:tdwg-content-bounces at lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Aaike De Wever
> Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2013 8:44 AM
> To: tuco at berkeley.edu; TDWG Content Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] Proposed new Darwin Core terms - abundance,
> abundanceAsPercent
>
> Dear all,
>
> As somewhat of an outsider I have another question with regards to the
> proposed terms abundance and abundanceAsPercent.
>
> Is there a specific reason for not adopting:
> * the abundance field as a field to store only the value and
> * a field abundanceUnit/abundanceType to specify whether the value is in %
> of species, % of biovolume, % of biomass, individuals/l, ind./m^2, ind/m^3,
> ind./sampling effort,...(instead of having a field specific for %)?
>
> Maybe this has been discussed during the hackathon and I missed it in the
> report?
>
> Thanks for considering this question.
>
> With best regards,
> Aaike
>
> John Wieczorek wrote:
>> Dear all,
>>
>> GBIF has just published "Meeting Report: GBIF hackathon-workshop on
>> Darwin Core and sample data (22-24 May 2013)" at
>> http://www.gbif.org/orc/?doc_id=5424. Now that this document is
>> available for public reference, I would like to formally open the
>> minimum 30-day comment period on two related new terms proposed during
>> the workshop and defined in the referenced document.
>>
>> The formal proposal would add the following new terms:
>>
>> Term Name: abundance
>> Identifier: http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/abundance
>> Namespace: http:/rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/
>> Label: Abundance
>> Definition: The number of individuals of a taxon found in a sample.
>> This is typically expressed as number per unit of area or volume. In
>> the case of vegetation and colonial/encrusting species, percent cover
>> can be used.
>> Comment: Examples: "4 per square meter", "0.32 per cubic meter",
>> "24%". For discussion see
>> http://code.google.com/p/darwincore/wiki/Occurrence (there will be no
>> further documentation here until the term is ratified) Type of Term:
>> http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#Property
>> Refines:
>> Status: proposed
>> Date Issued: 2012-03-01
>> Date Modified: 2013-09-25
>> Has Domain:
>> Has Range:
>> Refines:
>> Version: abundance-2013-09-25
>> Replaces:
>> IsReplaceBy:
>> Class: http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/Occurrence
>> ABCD 2.0.6: not in ABCD (someone please confirm or deny this)
>>
>> Term Name: abundanceAsPercent
>> Identifier: http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/abundanceAsPercent
>> Namespace: http:/rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/
>> Label: Abundance as Percent
>> Definition: 100 times the number of individuals of a taxon found in a
>> sample divided by the total number of individuals of all taxa in the
>> sample.
>> Comment: Examples: "2.4%". For discussion see
>> http://code.google.com/p/darwincore/wiki/Occurrence (there will be no
>> further documentation here until the term is ratified) Type of Term:
>> http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#Property
>> Refines:
>> Status: proposed
>> Date Issued: 2012-08-01
>> Date Modified: 2013-09-25
>> Has Domain:
>> Has Range:
>> Refines:
>> Version: abundanceAsPercent-2013-09-25
>> Replaces:
>> IsReplaceBy:
>> Class: http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/Occurrence
>> ABCD 2.0.6: not in ABCD (someone please confirm or deny this)
>>
>> The related issues in the Darwin Core issue tracker are
>> https://code.google.com/p/darwincore/issues/detail?id=142
>> and
>> https://code.google.com/p/darwincore/issues/detail?id=187
>>
>> If there are any objections to the changes proposed for these new
>> terms, or comments about their definitions, please respond to this
>> message. If there are no objections or if consensus can be reached on
>> any amendments put forward, the proposal will go before the Executive
>> Committee for authorization to put these additions into effect after
>> the public commentary period.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> John
>> _______________________________________________
>> tdwg-content mailing list
>> tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org
>> http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content
>
> --
> Aaike De Wever
> BioFresh Science Officer
> Freshwater Laboratory, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences
> Vautierstraat 29, 1000 Brussels Belgium
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> email: <aaike.dewever at naturalsciences.be>
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