Developing a vocabulary and ontology for modeling insect natural history data: example data, use cases, and competency questions

By

Stucky, Brian
Balhoff, James
Barve, Narayani
Barve, Vijay
Brenskelle, Laura
Brush, Matthew
Dahlem, Gregory
Gilbert, James
Kawahara, Akito Y
Keller, Oliver
Lucky, Andrea
Mayhew, Peter
Plotkin, David
Seltmann, Katja C
Talamas, Elijah
Vaidya, Gaurav
Walls, Ramona
Yoder, Matt
Zhang, Guanyang
Guralnick, Rob

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2019-03-13

Original Publication

Biodiversity data journal

Volume

7

Pages

1--12

Subjects

biodiversity informatics , data modeling , Insects , Natural history , ontology

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia Pensoft Publishers [2013]-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.7.e33303
eLocator: e33303

 

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.