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A summary of key points from discussions of the IAS DwC proposal
This is a summary of key points from the discussion of this IAS proposal on the tdwg-content mailing list and elsewhere.
Contributors: Robert Guralnick, Donald Hobern; Melodie McGeoch; Chuck Miller; Gil Nelson; Francisco Pando; Tim Robinson, Annie Simpson, Ramona Walls and John Wilson.
Q: Should "origin" be subcategorised into before and after 1500?
A: This is an novel addition to the IUCN vocabulary for "origin", but it does make the "origin" vocabulary consistent with the IUCN terms for occurrenceStatus which also has the distinction of "Extinct (post 1500)"([http://s3.amazonaws.com/wiki_docs/Presence,%20Seasonal%20and%20Origin%20Attributes%20for%20Species%20Ranges.pdf]). For some parts of the world this is more useful, but 1500 marks the beginning of the modern era and is a possible start date for the Anthropocene.
Q: Including absence in DwC could lead to inclusion of many unnecessary absence records in GBIF.
A: The change to the vocabulary of occurrenceStatus removes the term absent from the controlled vocabulary, so it should improve the situation.
Q: the hierarchical vocabulary in establishmentMeans is a questionmark?
A: this pathway vocabulary seems popular with other invasive species biologists, but flat files are not ideal for hierarchical vocabularies. Nevertheless, I don't see major problems in this case.
Q: The term "establishmentMeans" is problematic in the sense that the word established is synonymous naturalised in invasion science, e.g. Richardson et al. 2000 doi: 10.1046/j.1472-4642.2000.00083.x, and Fig. 1 in Blackburn et al. 2011 doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2011.03.023.
A: Yes, this is unfortunate. The alternative would be to deprecate establishmentMeans and create a new field, such as introductionMeans.
The Global Invasive Species Information Network (GISIN) has worked for several years on standards and vocabularies for IAS data. This can be browsed at http://ibis-live1.nrel.colostate.edu/cwis438/websites/GISINDirectory/Tech/Protocol_Home.php?WebSiteID=4 Regarding this proposal the section on species occurrence is relevant http://tools.gbif.org/dwca-validator/extension.do?id=http://www.gisin.org/IASProfile/SpeciesStatus
PlinianCore is working on standards suitable for describing IAS data.
GBIF, IUCN and GIASIP have been working on making some standardised checklist datasets using standards from the Invasive Species Specialist Group (IUCN SSC ISSG). See: Pagad, S., Genovesi, P., Carnevali, L., Scalera, R., Clout, M., Katsanevakis, S., & Roy, H. (2015). IUCN SSC Invasive Species Specialist Group: invasive alien species information management supporting practitioners, policy makers and decision takers. Management of Biological Invasions, 6(2), 127-135. (http://dx.doi.org/10.3391/mbi.2015.6.2.03). The current test datasets are available on http://giasip.gbif.org/. The vocabulary for invasiveness is here http://rs.gbif.org/sandbox/vocabulary/issg/invasiveness.xml and for status is here http://rs.gbif.org/sandbox/vocabulary/issg/status.xml.
The vocabulary shoul be aligned with the Essential Biodiversity Variable initiative (http://geobon.org/essential-biodiversity-variables/what-are-ebvs/), (www.invasionevs.com).
There is a need to demonstrate that there is a community and use cases that need these changes.
There are uses involving the calculation of essential variables for invasion monitoring; red-listing; horizon scanning for potential invasions and early warning of invasions.
For example, the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council needs to know how plant has become established and whether is displacing native flora to list a plant species as invasive. ###The context of terms and vocabularies It is important to distinguish the usages of these terms for different purposes. They have, often subtlety, different meanings when used in the context of individual observations; regional checklists and species descriptions. It may be useful to explain these differences in the DwC documentation.
There is uncertainty, a lack of clarity and concerns about imposing controlled vocabularies for DwC terms. This is a general issue for the whole of DwC. Clearly, automation, aggregation and clarity are improved by further standardisation. However, imposing limitations might restrict the use of DwC, stifle innovation and reduce its flexibility. The optional use of controlled vocabularies also has the advantage that the DwC terms can remain more stable.
A possible way to improve the situation would be to add use-case-based standard vocabularies. This is what AppleCore is trying to achieve as DwC guidelines specifically for herbaria (https://github.com/tdwg/applecore).
The Biological Collections Ontology (BCO) is also a way of testing vocabularies within and across domains, though lack of maintenance resources is a problem.
Which set of DwC fields could we consider “core” so that we can standardise them to everyone’s benefit?