[Nhcoll-l] How does your collection handle sites with multiple habitats sampled?

[Dean Pentcheff]

Just to be pedantic, there's variation in whether databases are constructed
with separate location and event tables, or take a unified view towards a
location/event. Separate tables are useful in cases where there is repeat
sampling at a single location.

But that said... we, too, would likely declare those to be separate events
(also separate specimen lots — we'd likely separate them into two
containers). In a slightly more debatable decision, we may also create
separate "events" when a single sample is split between ethanol and
formalin preservative.

-Dean
-- 
Dean Pentcheff
pentcheff at gmail.com
pentcheff at nhm.org <dpentche at nhm.org>
https://research.nhm.org/disco



On Fri, Apr 12, 2024 at 12:50 AM Tom Schiøtte <tschioette at snm.ku.dk> wrote:

> Hi Nate,
>
>
>
> I agree with Brian (and yourself apparently). In our setup collecting gear
> is part of the event record as is a field for ‘Fresh
> water/Marine/Terrestrial’. These only give meaning when two events are
> recorded.
>
>
>
> Cheers
>
>
>
> Tom
>
>
>
> *Tom Schiøtte*
>
>
>
> *Collection manager, Echinodermata & Mollusca*
>
> *Natural History Museum of Denmark (Zoology)*
>
> *Universitetsparken 15*
>
> *DK 2100 Copenhagen OE*
>
>
>
> *+45 35 32 10 48*
>
> *TSchioette at snm.ku.dk <TSchioette at snm.ku.dk>*
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> *On Behalf Of *Sidlauskas,
> Brian
> *Sent:* 12. april 2024 02:15
> *To:* Shoobs, Nate <shoobs.1 at osu.edu>; nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
> *Subject:* Re: [Nhcoll-l] How does your collection handle sites with
> multiple habitats sampled?
>
>
>
> You don't often get email from brian.sidlauskas at oregonstate.edu. Learn
> why this is important <https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification>
>
> Hi Nate,
>
>
>
> Figured I’d respond to this one, since I’m asking you for more caliper
> advice. 😉
>
>
>
> This sounds like a case of one locality with two different collecting
> events.  Even when a team is targeting all the same nominal taxon (e.g.,
> just fishes, or just insects, or whatever) I think the differences in
> collecting method (trap versus seine versus shocker) are relevant when more
> than one method is used at a site.  So, I’d record this as two separate
> collecting events with different associated data in the collection method
> field.  There might also be differences in fields like depth, start time
> and end time.  I’d probably record the microhabitat details in a free text
> field (not the locality description).
>
>
>
> Best Fishes,
>
>
>
> ---- Brian
>
>
>
> ____________________________________
>
> *Brian Sidlauskas*
>
> Professor and Curator of Fishes
>
> Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Sciences
>
> Oregon State University
>
> 104 Nash Hall
>
> Corvallis, OR 97331
>
>
>
> Pronouns:  he/his/him
>
> brian.sidlauskas at oregonstate.edu
>
> 541-737-6789 (office) 541-224-3850 (cell)
>
> http://ichthyology.oregonstate.edu
>
> https://www.facebook.com/brian.sidlauskas
>
> https://twitter.com/briansidlauskas
>
> [image: Logo Description automatically generated with medium confidence]
>
>
>
>
>
> *From: *Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> on behalf of
> "Shoobs, Nate" <shoobs.1 at osu.edu>
> *Date: *Thursday, April 11, 2024 at 6:39 PM
> *To: *"nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu" <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>
> *Subject: *[Nhcoll-l] How does your collection handle sites with multiple
> habitats sampled?
>
>
>
> You don't often get email from shoobs.1 at osu.edu. Learn why this is
> important <https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification>
>
> [This email originated from outside of OSU. Use caution with links and
> attachments.]
>
> Hey all,
>
> This one is for those of you who manage “collecting events” as a separate
> table or group of tables in a relational database, with a one-to-many
> relationship to collection objects or specimen lots. I’d like to hear some
> different perspectives on how your collection would handle the following
> situation:
>
>
>
> A jar containing 5 species of 5 species of land snails bears the following
> collecting data:
>
>
>
> “Blue River at Rt. 101 Bridge, 5 mi N of Anywhere, USA. Station
> BS-2024-100. Crayfish seined from 1-2 ft of water in 1 pass, snails
> abundant on bank vegetation. B. Smith, 11-April-2024!”
>
>
>
> We know these specimens share a locality, collector, date of collection,
> etc. But the specific habitat is different, and taxonomists focusing on
> either group (crayfish or snails) might write the locality a bit
> differently, for example, a crayfish biologist might write “Blue River at…”
> whereas a terrestrial malacologist might prefer “Along bank of Blue River
> at…” to indicate more clearly that the specimens were not found in the
> river itself. Furthermore, the gear type and method of collecting is
> different (the crayfish were caught in a seine, but the snails were
> hand-caught on vegetation.)
>
> *Would this be one collecting event in your collection, or two? How would
> you parse the data, and why?*
>
>
>
> (Assume that both the crayfish and snails are in-scope for your
> collection, of course.)
>
>
>
> In my personal collecting, I have always treated “in” and “out” of the
> water as different stations even when at the same place, but I don’t want
> to impose my personal preference on our collection here without seeing what
> others do.
>
>
>
> -Nate
>
> --
>
> [image: The Ohio State University]
> *Nathaniel F. Shoobs*
> Curator of Mollusks
> College of Arts & Sciences Dept. of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal
> Biology
> Museum of Biological Diversity, 1315 Kinnear Rd, Columbus, OH 43212
> 614-688-1342 (Office)
> mbd.osu.edu
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