property: parent

[nielsklazenga]

parent (property)

Identifier	http://rs.tdwg.org/tcs/terms/parent
Type	http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#Property
Label	Parent
	required: No — repeatable: No
Definition	The direct parent immediately next higher taxon in a hierarchical classification.
Usage	parent is another Taxon Concept; a Taxon Concept can have only one parent.
GitHub issue	https://github.com//issues/8

Comments

The parent is another Taxon Concept. This is the parent as indicated in the accordingTo reference, rather than a third-party classification. The accordingTo of the parent will generally, but not necessarily, be the same as that of the child.

Examples

<https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/taxon/6DBT> a tcs:TaxonConcept ;
    dcterms:title "Panthera sec. Catalogue of Life 2024-01-24" ;
    tcs:accordingTo <https://doi.org/10.48580/dfrdl> ;
    tcs:taxonName: [ a tcs:TaxonName ;
            tcs:taxonNameString: "Panthera" ;
            dwc:scientificNameAuthorship: "Oken, 1816" ] .

<https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/taxon/4CGXP> a tcs:TaxonConcept ;
    dcterms:title "Panthera leo sec. Catalogue of Life 2024-01-24" ;
    tcs:accordingTo <https://doi.org/10.48580/dfrdl> ;
    tcs:taxonName: [ a tcs:TaxonName ;
            tcs:taxonNameString: "Panthera leo" ;
            dwc:scientificNameAuthorship: "(Linnaeus, 1758)" ] ;
    tcs:parent <https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/taxon/6DBT> .

<https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/taxon/4CGXQ> a tcs:TaxonConcept ;
    dcterms:title "Panthera onca sec. Catalogue of Life 2024-01-24" ;
    tcs:accordingTo <https://doi.org/10.48580/dfrdl> ;
    tcs:taxonName: [ a tcs:TaxonName ;
            tcs:taxonNameString: "Panthera onca" ;
            dwc:scientificNameAuthorship: "(Linnaeus, 1758)" ] ;
    tcs:parent <https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/taxon/6DBT> .

<https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/taxon/4CGXR> a tcs:TaxonConcept ;
    dcterms:title "Panthera pardus sec. Catalogue of Life 2024-01-24" ;
    tcs:accordingTo <https://doi.org/10.48580/dfrdl> ;
    tcs:taxonName: [ a tcs:TaxonName ;
            tcs:taxonNameString: "Panthera pardus" ;
            dwc:scientificNameAuthorship: "(Linnaeus, 1758)" ] ;
    tcs:parent <https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/taxon/6DBT> .

<https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/taxon/4CGXS> a tcs:TaxonConcept ;
    dcterms:title "Panthera tigris sec. Catalogue of Life 2024-01-24" ;
    tcs:accordingTo <https://doi.org/10.48580/dfrdl> ;
    tcs:taxonName: [ a tcs:TaxonName ;
            tcs:taxonNameString: "Panthera tigris" ;
            dwc:scientificNameAuthorship: "(Linnaeus, 1758)" ] ;
    tcs:parent <https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/taxon/6DBT> .

[TaxonConcept-parent-example-1.ttl] [TaxonConcept-parent-example-1.jsonld]

Mapping

TCS	DataSet/TaxonConcepts/TaxonConcept/TaxonRelationships/TaxonRelationship/[@type="is child taxon of"] | DataSet/TaxonRelationshipAssertions/TaxonRelationshipAssertion[@type="is child taxon of"]
TDWG Ontology	http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/TaxonConcept#IsChildTaxonOf

Associated literal term: http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/parentNameUsage

[Archilegt]

Definition: The direct, most proximate parent scientific name in a classification.

Provisions should be taken to reduce ambiguity for different potential users here. Note that classifications in biodiversity informatics are frequently a triple alignment of paths, one ID path (e.g., numeric), one taxon rank path, and one scientific name path. The definition we want is primarily based on the scientific name path.

[nielsklazenga]

Point taken, the definition is not great, but the parent is not a scientific name, but another Taxon Concept (which has a label that can be a scientific name).

[nielsklazenga]

What would work for me is something like:

The most proximate higher-rank Taxon Concept as stated in the same publication

The 'as stated in the same publication' might not be quite the formulation that we want, but it is important to point out that the parent is not the parent according to some third-party classification. When we still had parent as a taxon relationship type (when we still had taxon relationships), we had a usage note that the 'according to' of the relationship assertion had to be the same as that of the taxon concept. We do not have the 'according to' for the relationship assertion anymore and I think we get into trouble if we say that the 'according to' of the parent is the same as that of the child (although that is a matter of granularity), so we have to find another way.

We might also want to do something about the 'higher-rank' so that it is less closely tied to ranked classification. Maybe just 'higher'? Not sure how important that is, as, without the ranked classification, you would probably more likely talk about more and less inclusive clades (which are covered by Taxon Alignments) rather than parents and children.

[nielsklazenga]

2025-04-17

Changed definition to:

The immediately next higher taxon in a hierarchical classification

following #244.

I only now see the most proximate higher-rank Taxon Concept that I used in a comment three years ago. That might be nicer than immediately next higher taxon.

[nielsklazenga]

Also #244 suggests to change the name of the term to parentTaxonConcept. I prefer just parent (and child and sibling) but what @ben-norton suggests in #244 is what is mostly done in TDWG standards. It's just a matter of preference, so let's discuss it a bit more and then do a poll.

[ben-norton]

@nielsklazenga Sounds awesome.