Wikidata talk:WikiProject Biodiversity
A space for iNaturalist users on Wikimedia projects edit
Notified participants of WikiProject Biology
WikiProject Taxonomy has more than 50 participants and couldn't be pinged. Please post on the WikiProject's talk page instead. We just created this WikiProject and would like to invite you to join.--DarTar (talk) 17:26, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- sure add me in I am a member of iNaturalists also. Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 20:48, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
This might be of interest edit
https://tools.wmflabs.org/mix-n-match/#/catalog/238 --Magnus Manske (talk) 15:38, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
Inactive taxa on iNaturalist edit
Should inactive taxa on iNaturalist be included in Wikidata? If so, should be they be marked with a qualifier in some way? Is there a way to build a tool that can detect active/inactive status and append that information to Wikidata?
Example: Zygophyllum album is currently an inactive synonym[1] on iNaturalist because it was swapped into Tetraena alba, which is currently active on iNaturalist.[2]
It seems that there should be only one iNaturalist link on the taxonbar on the Wikipedia page for Tetraena alba, right?--since clicking the iNaturalist link under Z. album just directs the user to head to T. alba anyway. The issue of inactive entities in external databases definitely applies to databases other than iNaturalist, and surely has been discussed elsewhere, but after a brief search I wasn't able to find an answer to what I'm looking for, and I'm really only familiar with iNaturalist's scheme of active/inactive taxa. Thanks for bearing with me as I get my footing here on Wikidata! –Hyperik ⌜talk⌟ 14:26, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
- @Hyperik: great question (and welcome to Wikidata). I imagine taxon synonym (P1420) could be used for this with the taxon change URL as a reference for provenance, but I'd rather have others from Wikiproject Taxonomy chime in.--DarTar (talk) 00:24, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
- Sure, include entries for "inactive taxa" on the relevant items. It does not add much useful information but it does not really hurt either. This issue does occur in other databases (like GBIF, WoRMS, etc).
- Indeed, taxon synonym (P1420) can be used (or "instance of: synonym, of: ... "); preferably that is used with a good taxonomic paper or book as a reference, but in practice we have too few "real" references. - Brya (talk) 03:38, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
- Like this? Could that information be used to hide that item for the inactive iNaturalist taxon ID in taxonbars? –Hyperik ⌜talk⌟ 12:46, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
Taxon Frameworks edit
Notified participants of WikiProject iNaturalist
Hey all, iNaturalist just announced the introduction of Taxon Frameworks based on a number of external secondary authorities, in an effort to "track and communicate what we mean by a particular branch of the tree of life and thus what we're all agreeing to reference and curate towards." Worth reading as it has potential implications for data modeling and referencing in Wikidata.--DarTar (talk) 00:30, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
Snippets from not only English Wikipedia are also used on iNaturalist to describe individual taxa edit
When I use iNaturalist I get the wikipedia pages in English and Dutch. Looking at the translations of iNaturalist into other languagues I see links to other languagues too so I expect the use of Wikipedia in iNaturalist is not limited to Dutch and English only. http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/ http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/ http://de.wikipedia.org/wik
Take a look about Nederland on this page: https://www.inaturalist.org/places/nederland Go to tab [About Nederland] with Flikcr fotos and choose ten different languagues. You see diffent wikipedia pages for every languague.
14:08, 30 January 2019 (UTC)~
Create service to load iNaturalist observations in commons. edit
@DarTar: @Daniel_Mietchen: @Multichill: On the discussion page of Commons compatible image available at URL (P4765), @Multichill: proposed to set up a service to load iNaturalist observations. I am pulling in this discussion here. To continue the discussion. Personally, I am excited by the prospect of having those iNaturalist images loaded to commons by a service, as Multichill proposes. The only downside I could think of is that commons will be extended by 200k CCO images and 680k CC-BY photos. Most of those observations are not necessarily useful in a Wikipedia story. But if enriching commons with this number of pictures is not frowned upon, I am all for it. --Andrawaag (talk) 17:49, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
- Sounds good to me, but such frowning would have to be discussed over on Commons. --Daniel Mietchen (talk) 19:51, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
- I have uploaded a couple of files over the years to Commons (2M+) and I think these things make Commons users happy:
- Good quality photos
- Free license
- Good metadata and good categorization
- Wikipedia is the most important user of images on Commons, but the project scope is much broader than that. I checked some photos and quality seems ok. Andra already pointed out that plenty of them are under a free license. Metadata seems to be very good. I would focus on the research grade pictures first. These are linked to a species id which we also have here on Wikidata so we know to what category to upload it on Commons. Clear timestamp and the coordinates complete the picture. We should definitely move this conversation to Commons at some point. Multichill (talk) 20:20, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
- I have uploaded a couple of files over the years to Commons (2M+) and I think these things make Commons users happy:
Template:Inaturalist in Commons edit
There is a Commons:Template:Inaturalist in commons. It would be great to use this template to add the observation id to the metadata. --ChristianSW (talk) 18:05, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
- I will be doing some improvements to Commons:Template:iNaturalist, related category and images to get it a bit more in line with other similar initiatives on Commons. Multichill (talk) 19:40, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
- @Multichill: Thank you - and sorry for this late answer. --ChristianSW (talk) 03:37, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
Renaming to WikiProject Biodiversity edit
Notified participants of WikiProject iNaturalist Today I learned of another platform that adapted their license policy to one where users can choose which license to apply. Among the possible licenses there are those that are compatible with the different wikimedia platforms.
I am proposing to rename the project to WikiProject Biodiversity, to allow discussions beyond iNaturalist only. I will remain an avid iNaturalist supporter, but I do welcome other platforms to follow the same freedom to choose an applicable license. --Andrawaag (talk) 18:56, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
Support I support the renaming of the project to WikiProject Biodiversity --Ambrosia10 (talk) 19:23, 19 May 2020 (UTC)- Support--DarTar (talk) 19:43, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
- Support "WikiProject Biodiversity" sounds good to me. --Daniel Mietchen (talk) 02:46, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
WikiProject Taxonomy has more than 50 participants and couldn't be pinged. Please post on the WikiProject's talk page instead..
- Support Friesen5000 (talk) 04:16, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
- Support --Lymantria (talk) 05:19, 20 May 2020 (UTC) BTW, Waarneming.nl (Q2449879)/Waarnemingen.be (Q20972033)/Observation.org (Q2920162) have a free license policy for images already for a long time.
- Support Salgo60 (talk)
- Support Ok for me. Culex (talk) 07:32, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
- Support Sounds good. TiagoLubiana (talk) 10:00, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
- Support good for me keep me informed also over at Wikispecies. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 12:42, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
- Support Mr. Fulano! Talk 23:11, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
- Support --ChristianSW (talk) 03:37, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
- Support. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 11:19, 24 May 2020 (UTC).
Done --Andrawaag (talk) 08:24, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
Mix'n'match for iNaturalist places edit
Notified participants of WikiProject Biodiversity
Hi, here is a list for iNaturalist place ID (P7471): https://mix-n-match.toolforge.org/#/catalog/3900
The Signpost: Photos of threatened species from iNaturalist edit
Notified participants of WikiProject Biodiversity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2020-08-02/Gallery
Telegram chanel edit
Notified participants of WikiProject Biodiversity We have started two telegram channel related to this project.
There is the general channel and the Tech sandbox You are welcome to join by clicking on the respective links. --Andrawaag (talk) 19:14, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
- Why do we need more channels? What do they offoer us, that on-wiki commuocaton does not? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:58, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
Wikidata community award edit
Notified participants of WikiProject Biodiversity WikiProject Biodiversity received a Wikidata community award! Kind regards, --ChristianSW (talk) 06:48, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
How best to use the taxon range property? edit
Notified participants of WikiProject Biodiversity
I've been looking at the property taxon range (P9714), which was recently established in WD. A quick search reveals that so far it has had only limited use, with only about 7 taxa have a taxon range statement (I think?). I've been wondering about how this is intended to be used? Is the idea it would be populated at scale using the data derived from other systems (e.g. GBIF, iNaturalist) or could it also be populated using data derived directly from papers such as this: https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/28712/element/5/31// . This paper provides a checklist of Butterflies in Europe. In the supplementary materials is provided the checklist, in a spreadsheet, broken down by the 28 countries in Europe i.e. overall it provides the range status of 496 European butterflies across 28 countries in an easily re-usable format.
I guess the first question might be, can we re-use the data? According the paper this dataset is made available under the Open Database License intended to allow users to freely share, modify, and use this Dataset while maintaining this same freedom for others, provided that the original source and author(s) are credited, so it doesn't seem there are restrictions there?
Technically speaking, it looks like it would be fairly straightforward to add this data set to Wikidata, appropriately referenced. By way of a test case, I took the liberty of manually adding such a statement to Scarce Swallowtail (Q31080). Of course, adding the complete data set would result in some widely distributed taxa there being ~28 taxon range statements being added, and that only covers Europe in this instance.
So, a few questions spring to mind:
1) Is this a good idea? I think the data in this paper is likely to be highly accurate, but this approach doesn't scale terribly well. There are many such papers out there, which would need tackling on a case by case basis (I assume)
2) Is the statement in the test case above correct and appropriately referenced?
3) If data were added to WD derived from GBIF (say) at some point in the future, would this cause a problem? GBIF does contain checklists such as this one (although not this actual one), as well as many other types of range data.
4) Do we want to include taxon range data where the source definitively states "absent" from a particular area? This particular source also indicates whether a taxa is non-native, extinct etc. Again, do we want capture that in WD, if so how?
5) Was the intention to use taxon range at the country level? What would we do if there were a paper that gives taxa range data at the county level (say)?
I value your input and advice. JerryL2017 (talk) 11:26, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
- Hi JerryL2017, I haven't used this property as I tend to make more use of the P183 Endemic to property given I work mainly on New Zealand species. I do like this example given in the property item. For my work, I can see taxon range being used for those species that are native to but are not endemic to New Zealand. It also occurs to me that the property could possibly be used in other ways. I know for example in New Zealand we have what are referred to as "Crosby Codes" - that is codes for recording specimen localities within New Zealand. I have been meaning to add these codes as items to Wikidata and work out a way to start using them on species items. This property may assist with this. How to do this in bulk is an issue though as this information is normally stated in publications but may not be in datasets enabling bulk upload of the same. As regards the number taxon range statements I myself don't have an issue with the number of countries being added to a species name, although I can see others might. You raising this issue has also got me thinking about the P6803 Taxon found at location property and how these could be added to location items such as nature reserves that have an iNaturalist place identifier attached to them. Hopefully others will also weigh in on this as I think you raise some interesting points. Ambrosia10 (talk) 22:26, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
- A couple of points. I forsee this being useful though I would suggest the statement be qualified as the known range of a taxon, as this can be doubtful for many species, also to qualify between extant, extirpated, introduced and extinct. Going below say state level within a country is probably not a good idea, many information systems are now reluctant to give out precise locality details of species due to this encouraging illegal trade, to the point even exact type localities are sometimes being left out of new species descriptions in an attempt to prevent smuggling. I would recommend WD follow this principal also.
- I would suggest that the best place to obtain this data will be the peer reviewed literature and high quality checklists, I would not be gleaning this from more general works as its often inaccurate. Adding this data could be tedious and will not be equal across biota, there are plenty of species where we really do not know their range.
- At some point you may want to consider expanding this to biomes rather than just countries or states as biologically the biome is more important and useful than the political localization of a species. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 08:12, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
- English Wikipedia already applies en:World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions to plant distribution categories. This scheme would probably be fine enough for animals. I'm not clear whether there is a comparable standard for Zoology. Indeed the WGSRPD is significantly more detailed than the scheme used in, say, Catalogue of Palaearctic Coleoptera (Q88562381). The authors of the Cooperative Catalogue of Palaearctic Coleoptera Curculionoidea have pointed out that the CPC's use of an adhoc system felt unnecessary. The main issue is that the traditional convention in zoogeography groups countries in zoogeographic regions. However this is an artificial break, since in both CPC and WGSRPD, the basic unit of distribution is the country, with various geographical peculiarities having to be accounted for (usually for islands and outlying areas). WGSRPD has both hierarchical numerical codes and three-letter codes, but the latter can in theory be grouped to satisfy any sort of alternate organization that cuts across the continents as defined by the scheme.
- The only shortcoming of WGSRPD ed. 2 is that it doesn't account for a few geopolitical changes in the 12 years since its publication. Circeus (talk) 12:43, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
Natterjack toad twice edit
Should Natterjack Toad (Q622886) and Bufo calamita (Q50407495) be merged? I see that their eBiodiversity ID (P6864) value is the same, but I do not see a uniqueness warning. And the GBIF taxon ID (P846) values are different... I have not experience with taxon merging and wonder if there are any general procedure to do this? — Finn Årup Nielsen (fnielsen) (talk) 10:16, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
- No, I don't think they should be merged. Bufo calamita (Q50407495) is currently listed as a protonym of Natterjack Toad (Q622886) using the subject has role (P2868) property, and conversely the Natterjack Toad (i.e. Epidalea calamita) is listed as a recombination of Bufo calamita by use of the same property. Hence even though they are technically the same species they still each represent a unique taxon (they have different authors, their years of scientific description differ by a century, and so forth), and should in my opinion therefore each have their own independent Wikidata items. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 02:48, 14 February 2022 (UTC).
Property proposal: Observation.org place ID edit
Notified participants of WikiProject Biodiversity: Wikidata:Property_proposal/Observation.org_place_ID ChristianSW (talk) 07:50, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
How to state that a species currently have specimens alive? edit
As of the time of this writing, there's a total of 65.159 species that are instances of extinct taxon (Q98961713) or any of its subclasses (SPARQL query). An example of such item is thylacine (Q123102) (revision).
I was wondering if we should also have a Wikidata item for "living taxon" to explictly state that there's at least one specimen of that species alive.
I'd be interested in creating such Wikidata item for using it as a value for instance of (P31) just as extinct taxon (Q98961713) is being used. As of the time of this writing, extinct taxon (Q98961713) has the statement subclass of (P279)taxon (Q16521) (revision), and there are some living species that also have instance of (P31)taxon (Q16521) (e.g. Panthera uncia, hippopotamus). Because of this, it is not possible to know whether a species that have instance of (P31)taxon (Q16521) is extinct or not.
As far as I'm concerned, there's no consensus for stating that a taxon have at least one specimen alive (i.e. no-extinct taxon), so this could be considered a way. If there exists a way or you consider have a better alternative, please write it as a reply to this post.
If you don't know or have an alternative, could you share your thoughts on having a Wikidata item for "living taxon" for using it as a value for instance of (P31)?
Significant updates to wasp superfamily Chalcidoidea edit
Notified participants of WikiProject Biodiversity: Anyone looking for a project? A new paper makes significant progress towards sorting out the 'garbage family' Pteromalidae - lots of new families, subfamilies, tribes. I'll likely pick away at it but would welcome any assistance! Also, I'll likely have questions about how best to represent all these changes (eg: create new item for a subfamily that's elevated to family level, or just add/change taxon rank of existing item?). Article is here https://jhr.pensoft.net/article/94263/ Friesen5000 (talk) 18:23, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
- I have notified the talk page of WikiProject Insects on English Wikipedia to alert editors there as well. Loopy30 (talk) 19:53, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks! Friesen5000 (talk) 23:27, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
Wiki Loves Plants edit
Notified participants of WikiProject Biodiversity Just discovered c:Commons:Wiki Loves Plants ChristianSW (talk) 18:15, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
Agassiz urchin fossil cast collection import project edit
Hello everyone at the WikiProject Biodiversity! user:Morpiz and I have been commissioned by Wikimedia CH to import files and data related to the Collection of sea urchin fossils casts created by Louis Agassiz (Q121092336) of the Natural history museum of Neuchâtel (Q3330885). In order to document the project, have a space for resources, links and discussions, I created a subpage of the project: Wikidata:WikiProject Biodiversity/Agassiz urchin fossil cast collection import. We just started working on the project, so more information will be added on this page in the upcoming months.
If you have any questions, recommendations or suggestions, let me know! Best, Auregann (talk) 11:48, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
Oniscophagy edit
How can we improve oniscophagy (Q123579031) and oniscophage (Q123579039), and the modelling of the relationships between them, and with Oniscoidea (Q7093945)?
Do we have other "-phagy" items that can serve as a template? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:52, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
New Protist images edit
Please see and make use (here and on Wikipedia) of images in c:Category:Openly available illustrations as tools to describe eukaryotic microbial diversity.
I have written to the authors to let them know we are using their images and thank them for the initiative. I took the opportunity to ask about some images described in their paper (Openly available illustrations as tools to describe eukaryotic microbial diversity (Q123558544)), but missing from the set made available for download, which they will provide shortly. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:56, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
Free access to Phytotaxa and Zootaxa edit
Would you like to have free access to Phytotaxa and Zootaxa though the Wikipedia Library? If you are eligible for a Wikipedia Library account, please upvote this request.
Even if you already have access through some other means, your upvote will help to secure free access for other Wikimedia volunteers. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:03, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
Modelling type specimens edit
We have at least three ways of modelling type specimens. There are two alternatives (one using the deprecated of (P642) qualifier) in Q55200035#P31.
In conversation with User:Rdmpage , he gave a third example, and raised some very pertinent questions:
Do we model type specimens as instance of (P31) type specimen (Q51255340) or holotype (Q1061403)? Is "holotype" a thing or a role (see NHMD107509 (Q116506719)? How do we link to taxa? [...] It would be helpful if we had a clear model for type specimens (and aligned existing records with that model if possible), and also had images available to make the records more useful.
Can we agree and apply a common standard? Do we need reciprocity between the specimen and the taxon? Do we need a new property or properties? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:30, 18 February 2024 (UTC)