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

Thu Sep 26 16:37:15 CEST 2013

  I agree with Donald here regarding the need for Abundance, but am, to be
honest, not quite I understand (or agree) with the logic of the proposal.
Abundance is listed as a property of an occurrence, and I wonder if that
make sense given the class definition "The category of information
pertaining to evidence of an occurrence in nature, in a collection, or in a
dataset (specimen, observation, etc.)"  Is abundance "evidence of an
occurrence in nature".  To me, abundance is a property of a survey and its
associated methodology and is based on multiple occurrences that come from
a sample and a definition of extent.

  It seems to me to be a bad fit to scrunch abundance into the occurrence
class.  I recognize that it might not quite fit anywhere in DwC yet.
 Wouldn't it be better to wait to see if materialSample is ratified as a
class within the Darwin Core?

Best, Rob

On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 8:01 AM, Donald Hobern [GBIF] <dhobern at gbif.org>wrote:

> Thanks, John.
>
> You are correct.  I think though that abundance is such a commonly needed
> property that it would be a mistake not to make it work easily even in
> Simple Darwin Core.
>
> 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: gtuco.btuco at gmail.com [mailto:gtuco.btuco at gmail.com] On Behalf Of
> John
> Wieczorek
> Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2013 3:48 PM
> To: Donald Hobern [GBIF]
> Cc: aaike.dewever at naturalsciences.be; TDWG Content Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] Proposed new Darwin Core terms - abundance,
> abundanceAsPercent
>
> 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
> > tel.: +32(0)2 627 43 90
> > mobile.: +32(0)486 28 05 93
> > email: <aaike.dewever at naturalsciences.be>
> > skype: aaikew
> > LinkedIn: <http://be.linkedin.com/in/aaikedewever>
> > BioFresh: <http://www.freshwaterbiodiversity.eu/> and
> > <http://data.freshwaterbiodiversity.eu/>
> > Belgian Biodiversity Platform: <http://www.biodiversity.be>
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
> >
>
>
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