Taxonomic Concept Transfer Schema

Robert Kukla

Transfer Schema

• Taxonomic units of interest?

• Which details do we need to record?

• What relationships between them?

Crucial question:

• What kind of structure to accommodate the above?

XML

• Marked up text: <tag>text</tag>

• Nesting of tags leads to tree structure

• Supports many character encodings, typically Unicode (UTF-8).

• Large number of tools to explore and manipulate XML.– e.g. validity of the XML file can be checked.

Schema Diagrams

Sequence

Choice

Design Conventions

• Element Names:– start with upper case letter– first letter of each component capitalised

• Attributes:– start with lower case letter– composite names discouraged

• Repeated elements– ContainerElements (e.g. <Items> for <Item>)– Attribute “id” (unique) so they can be referenced

• Complex elements– <Item> = <ItemSimple> + [<ItemDetailed>]

Top Level

MetaData

Voucher

Publication

Attribute: type (required)

Top Level

Concept - Definition

• Opinion about a group of organisms– by a person or group of people– has a name/label– definition – record is available– “time stamped”

Attribute: type (required)

• Own concepts – the author of the publication is also the author of the concept. The significance is that all available information about these concepts exists in the datasource for transcription. They can be:– Original – concepts where a new name has been created – Revision – the results of a re-classification (e.g. combining or

splitting) of existing concepts

• Referenced – the author of the publication relates his own concepts to concepts from other authors. The provided information might be incomplete or incorrect.

• Vernacular – common use of a name by a group of people; not well defined but often referenced

TaxonConcept

Name

AccordingTo

Relationships

Attribute: type (required)

• congruence• inclusion• pro-parte inclusion• overlap• exclusion

• homotypic synonymy• heterotypic synonymy• no synonymy

• lineage• vernacular

SpecimenCircumscription

Attribute: type (optional)– Type– Holotype– Selectotype– Others?

TaxonConceptCircumscription

• Attribute: type (required)– incomplete

Summary