Quick Reference: http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/index.htm#Occurrence

• occurrenceID
• catalogNumber
• recordNumber
• individualID
• sex
• occurrenceStatus
• associatedSequences

occurrenceID

Quick Reference: http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/index.htm#occurrenceID

The occurrenceID is supposed to (globally) uniquely identify an occurrence record, whether it is a specimen-based occurrence, a one-time observation of a species at a location, or one of many occurrences of an individual who is being tracked, monitored, or recaptured. Making it globally unique is quite a trick, one for which we don't really have good solutions in place yet, but one which ontologists insist is essential.

catalogNumber

Quick Reference: http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/index.htm#catalogNumber

catalogNumber is an unfortunate name for this term because it suggests a catalog, which suggests a specimen. The definition tries to ameliorate the potential bias by saying that it is a number to identify an occurrence record within a data set or collection. So, it could be a specimen catalog number or it could be a unique identifier for a record within an observation or animal movement data set.

recordNumber

Quick Reference: http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/index.htm#recordNumber

For specimens this is the equivalent of a collector's number - the identifier the collector given to a specimen or sample in the field and which is likely to have been written in associated field notes. The same idea applies to original numbers applied to any observation or sample in the field, though the terminology in a given discipline might be distinct. The recordNumber isn't the same as the catalogNumber, which is usually only applied once the specimen gets accessioned into a collection.

individualID

Quick Reference: http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/index.htm#individualID

individualID is meant for any records that need to identify individuals for whom there may be more than one record. Banded birds, marine mammal photos allowing individual identification, individual trees resampled overtime, periodic biopsies on the same individuals, etc. could all use this term to group the records corresponding to individuals.

sex

Quick Reference: http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/index.htm#sex

The recommended controlled vocabulary includes:

occurrenceStatus

Quick Reference: http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/index.htm#occurrenceStatus

The recommended controlled vocabulary includes:

¹ Use only "present" or "absent" as the possible values for occurrenceStatus of particular Events. Other values of the vocabulary are permissible for taxon distribution records.

associatedSequences

A semicolon delimited list of sequence identifiers with an optional prefix to indicate their origin. If the prefix is omitted it should be a well known identifier format from one of the INSDC databases (International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration), see http://www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp/sub/acc_def-e.html Examples would be:

AB425960;AB425963;DQ286547

For other sequence identifiers a prefix indicating the source or a full URL is desirable. The individual INSDC sequence read archives should be prefixed with the following:

• SRA: NCBI Sequence Read Archive
• DRA: DDBJ Sequence Read Archive
• ERA: EMBL Sequence Read Archive