Developing a vocabulary and ontology for modeling insect natural history data: example data, use cases, and competency questions
Affiliation
Univ Arizona, Bio5Univ Arizona, CyVerse
Issue Date
2019-03-13Metadata
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PENSOFT PUBLCitation
Stucky B, Balhoff J, Barve N, Barve V, Brenskelle L, Brush M, Dahlem G, Gilbert J, Kawahara A, Keller O, Lucky A, Mayhew P, Plotkin D, Seltmann K, Talamas E, Vaidya G, Walls R, Yoder M, Zhang G, Guralnick R (2019) Developing a vocabulary and ontology for modeling insect natural history data: example data, use cases, and competency questions. Biodiversity Data Journal 7: e33303. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.7.e33303Journal
BIODIVERSITY DATA JOURNALRights
© Stucky B et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0).Collection Information
This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.Abstract
Insects are possibly the most taxonomically and ecologically diverse class of multicellular organisms on Earth. Consequently, they provide nearly unlimited opportunities to develop and test ecological and evolutionary hypotheses. Currently, however, large-scale studies of insect ecology, behavior, and trait evolution are impeded by the difficulty in obtaining and analyzing data derived from natural history observations of insects. These data are typically highly heterogeneous and widely scattered among many sources, which makes developing robust information systems to aggregate and disseminate them a significant challenge. As a step towards this goal, we report initial results of a new effort to develop a standardized vocabulary and ontology for insect natural history data. In particular, we describe a new database of representative insect natural history data derived from multiple sources (but focused on data from specimens in biological collections), an analysis of the abstract conceptual areas required for a comprehensive ontology of insect natural history data, and a database of use cases and competency questions to guide the development of data systems for insect natural history data. We also discuss data modeling and technology-related challenges that must be overcome to implement robust integration of insect natural history data.Note
Open access journalISSN
1314-28281314-2836
DOI
10.3897/BDJ.7.e3330310.3897/BDJ.7.e33303.figure1
10.3897/BDJ.7.e33303.suppl1
10.3897/BDJ.7.e33303.suppl2
10.3897/BDJ.7.e33303.suppl3
Version
Final published versionSponsors
National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology [1612335]; University of Florida Informatics Institute fellowship; iDigBio workshop grantAdditional Links
https://bdj.pensoft.net/article/33303/https://bdj.pensoft.net/article/33303/element/2/4993777/
https://bdj.pensoft.net/article/33303/element/5/4994016/
https://bdj.pensoft.net/article/33303/element/5/4994017/
https://bdj.pensoft.net/article/33303/element/5/4994468/
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