sexualSystem
zedomel opened this issue · comments
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| GUID | |
| Rebipp Class | rebipp:PlantTrait |
| Label | sexualSystem |
| Definition | The gender expression and its occurrence at population or species levels. It is based in the presence and distribution of fertile whorls within the flower. |
| Comments | Recommended best practice is to use a controlled vocabulary. |
| Examples | monoceius, dioceius |
| Controlled vocabulary | monoecious; ginomonoecious; andromonoecious; trimonoecious; dioecious; temporal dioecious (monoecious + dichogamy); ginodioecious; androdioecious; tridioecious; poligamodioecious |
| Darwin Core Class | Occurrence |
| Cardinality | One to one |
| Reference Protocol |
Nothing to add, it seems fine
@pzermoglio can we use this term with dwc:Occurrence? The definition is based on plant species or population, and not related to the organism in the dwc:Occurrence. The concept is fine, since the sexual system is a property of a plant population or species.
Usually, we will have repeated values of this term to all Occurrences of same species in a dataset. Examples:
| occurrenceID | scientifcName | sexualSystem | decimalLatitude | decimalLongitude |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| occ 1 | Ilex aquifolium | dioecious | -45.2548 | 23.5846 |
| occ 2 | Ilex aquifolium | dioecious | -44.2568 | 22.3565 |
| occ 3 | Alnus serrulata | monoecious | -41.26485 | 23.4846 |
Maybe this term should be used with dwc:Taxon class as core, and dwc:Occurrence as extension. What do you think?
Core:
| taxonID | scientifcName | sexualSystem |
|---|---|---|
| tax 1 | Ilex aquifolium | dioecious |
| tax 2 | Alnus serrulata | monoecious |
Occurrence extension:
| coreID | occurrenceID | decimalLatitude | decimalLongitude |
|---|---|---|---|
| tax 1 | occ 1 | -45.2548 | 23.5846 |
| tax 1 | occ 2 | -44.2568 | 22.3565 |
| tax 2 | occ 3 | -41.26485 | 23.4846 |
Please add "Cosexuality" as a value in the controled vocabulary following Cardoso et al. 2018. This reference should be available for further reference. https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0102-33062018000300329&lng=en&tlng=en
I think it is fine to use this term with dwc:Occurrence and dwc:Taxon. However, different populations of the same plant species can have different sexual systems. Is it a problem?
@viniciusduartina thank for your contribution to the controlled vocab.
Regards your question: how are populations defined? Spatially? Genetically? The issue that I see here is that we don't have means to know from which population the plant individual in the dwc:Occurrence belongs (we don't have a term for that). So, in the end, following the definition of this term someone who get the data will interpret it as the individual in this dwc:Occurrence belongs to some unknown (not specified) population which shows the given sexualSystem (e.g. cosexuality, ,monoecius) OR that all individuals of the species shows the given sexualSystem.
My suggestion, in order to remove such ambiguity, is to change the definition so the term refers only to the population: The gender expression in the population which the individual(s) in this Occurrence belongs to. It is based in the presence and distribution of fertile whorls within the flower. We can improve it! But the idea is to change the definition to be clear that this term is an attribute of the population instead of the individual itself. Makes sense?
As @viniciusduartina pointed out, different population of plant species can have different sexual systems. So sexual system is indeed a species property? So, I believe that definition proposed by @zedomel seems more appropriated.
Hi, for individual you will always have something to insert in the bataset, for population it is not the case. If one find one individual the entire population could be impossible to reach, in that case to fill the dataset he/she will need to extrapolate the result for the entire population that could be different from the individual recorded. Could that be a problem? Most studies are a collection of single individuals from different species. For the individual the sex is reasonably fix, but for the population it may vary from individual to individual, how to fill a line in the dataset considering interindividual variation?
I'm getting confused .... Is the definition for the population or for the individual? By the second part of the definition (It is based in the presence and distribution of fertile whorls within the flower) we are referring to the individual. According to @arech2003 comments, it is very difficult to extrapolate to the population from the observations of some individuals. So the definition would not be "The gender expression and its occurrence at individual level. It is based on the presence and distribution of fertile whorls within the flower."?
@carmensspires I agree with you. But is it possible to know the sexual system without observing the population? How could someone know the sexual system looking just to one plant individual?
For the individual level the term flowerSexuality (#20) should cover that use case?
Definitions:
- Sexual System (Cardoso et al., 2018):
Sexual systems include gender expression and its occurrence at different levels, such as intrafloral, individual, population, or species levels.
But they also states that
Further classifications are based on the distribution of these floral types within and among the individuals of a given population.. so a inter-individual variation
Further classifications includes (but not limited to):
- Monoecy:
sexual system in which apopulation`present only unisexual (diclinous) flowers and both staminate and pistillate flowers occur in the same individual``
Perhaps, we need to clarify the concept here before define the term. What we mean by sexual system? How can we measure it?
Just a little thing about this descriptor: the spelling of the examples is not correct and is not matching the spelling of the controlled vocabulary. They should be "monoecious" and "dioecious" instead of "monoecius" and "dioecius".
Hi guys!
I ackonwledge that sexual expression in plants is really messy because it can be defined at the flower level (staminate, pistilate or bisexual), at the indiviual level (male, female ou hemarphrodite) or population level (cosexual, dioceous, monoecious, etc). Therefore, we need a common ground and I would strongly suggest the use of Cardoso et al. 2018 for reference in this matter. Accordingly to them (and refs within) sexual system is a property of populations rather than individuals. Of course we use the individuals to access traits at population level and it is virtually impossible to acess all the individuas of a population, but I think it is not a problem at all. We do it all the time. I would not recommend to think sexuality as a species trait despite some people do.
I agree with @zedomel that we should leave it as only a population term.
Hey @zedomel
I see there are many terms suggested as Controlled vocabulary that can be used to fulfill the sexualSystem metadata field and other metadata elements as well. Some ontologies cover these terms, including the preferred name for the term, stable URLs, and so on. I don't know if it could be useful but maybe you could create a special section in this GitHub repository so we can suggest the definitions for these terms suggested as controlled vocabulary, incorporating ontology definitions when possible. What do you think? For example, in the ECOCORE ontology, they set the term "hermaphroditic" as preferred instead of "monoecious", which is shown as a synonym. In this first moment, I don't think it's necessary to create a very complex structure like an ontology just for these controlled vocabularies you suggest because it could make the standard more difficult to use, but a list of terms with definitions could be helpful.
Hello everyone, I agree with @viniciusduartina, we must use it at a population level in reference to the species.
From Cardoso et al. 2018:
(1.1) Sexual systems
Sexual systems include gender expression and its occurrence at different levels, such as intrafloral, individual, population, or species levels. It is based in the presence and distribution of fertile whorls within the flower. Flowers may be bisexual, with both stamens (male organs) and pistils (carpels) (female organs), or unisexual, with only male (staminate flower) or female (pistillate or carpellate flower) functional organs (Fig. 2). Further classifications are based on the distribution of these floral types within and among the individuals of a given population.
A new definition is proposed following Cardoso et al. 2018:
New definition: The distribution of floral types within and among the individuals of same population
Comments: The gender expression is based in the presence and distribution of fertile whorls within the flower (bisexual, staminate flower, pistillate or carpellate flower)
I also agree with @viniciusduartina we should keep this descriptor at the population / species level. Therefore, the controlled vocabulary initially proposed should do the trick.
I agree with the new definition following Cardoso et al. 2018, as propsed by @zedomel and to keep it at population level as suggested by @viniciusduartina
I also agree with following Cardoso et al. 2018 and keeping it at population level. As @fonturbel said, we were already at population level in the controlled vocab.
Thank very much. Closing this issue now!