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core columns

from Mark on 2013-11-26..12-2:

critical columns are in bold
column names are from our materialized views .

  • time (temporal boundaries)
    • date: eventDate, dateCollected
  • place (spatial boundaries)
    • location: country, stateProvince, county, locality, decimalLatitude, decimalLongitude, coordinateUncertaintyInMeters
    • plot ID: locationID, locationName
    • plot dimensions: plotArea_ha
  • source (provenance): datasource, specimenHolderInstitutions, collection
    • who collected it: plot__collectors, recordedBy
  • taxonomic identity: scrubbed_family, scrubbed_genus, scrubbed_morphospecies_binomial, scrubbed_taxon_name_no_author, scrubbed_author
    • taxon assertion: taxonomic_status
    • taxon concept
  • co-occurrence in plot: plot ID and taxonomic identity fields above
  • individuals vs. stems: individualObservationID, individualCode, authorStemCode
  • counting/aggregation: individualCount, aggregateOrganismObservationID
  • resampling: eventDate
  • sampling methodologies: samplingProtocol, plotArea_ha
  • functional traits: diameterBreastHeight_cm, height_m, growthForm, the taxon_trait table
  • associated environmental measurements: temperature_C, precipitation_m

from Mark on 2014-8-9:

these critical columns are indicated above in bold

almost EVERY biodiversity observation has several essential pieces of information:

1) Location (geospatial-- not just a cryptic ID, but also country/state/county, and decimal latitude and longitude)

2) Taxonomic ID (e.g. binomial sp or family name etc.- and this field does often appear to have information when I issue your provided query)

3) Temporal information (when was it collected-- again in some readable format like an ISO8601-- YYYYMMDD)

4) PLOT ID (if relevant, and this would be unique when combined with SOURCE below)

5) Source (who collected it-- either as an individual or institution)