Database Content and Structure
Edaphobase collects data on soil organisms and associated data on sites of occurrences, methodologies, and/or data collectors and owners. All data is harmonized and collated together in a single data base to allow common data re-use in overarching queries or analyses. Which data can be used in specific analyses depends on the thematic resolution of the data and the data types included in the data set.
Edaphobase therefore requires a minimal data set that can, i.e., help describe a taxon’s geographic distribution. This includes:
- taxon, site of occurrence (incl. geo-coordinates) and sampling date
(à “what”, “where”, “when”?). Minimum requirements are presence/absence data.
A recommended data set can contribute to more detailed analyses, i.e., of taxa’s habitat preferences or niche space, biodiversity analyses of a specific area or habitat type, etc. This includes:
- the minimum data set above + data on habitat type or land-use, soil parameters as well as sampling methodologies and who sampled and determined the taxa
(à also “how”, “under what environmental conditions” and “by whom”?). Recommended is abundance (count or density) data.
The following pages describe which data Edaphobase can currently collect and how:
Variables (Information attributes)