NTR: plant density and seedling density

[ramonawalls]

For new term requests, please provide the following information:

Preferred term label

plant density

seedling density

plant population density

seedling population density

Synonyms

Textual definition

plant density: The density of plants in an ecological community or population, often measured as the number of plants per area.

seedling density: The density of seedlings in an ecological community or population, often measured as the number of seedlings per area.

plant population density: The density of plants in a single-species population, often measured as the number of plants per area.

seedling population density: The density of seedlings in a single-species population, often measured as the number of seedlings per area.

Suggested parent term

plant density subclass of PATO:mass density and inheres in some collection of plants (will need to add collection of plants)

seedling density subclass of plant density

Attribution

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8815-0078

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@celineaubert this issue is to address Planteome/plant-trait-ontology#452. Please let me know if you have any feedback on the definitions and add your orcid as well if you would like credit. I added plant population density and seedling population density to deal with the cases where the plants are all of a single species, which I think will be quite common in agronomy.

[celineaubert]

Hi Ramona,
plant and seedling density terms are used by agronomists to talk about single-species population. I am not sure the terms plant/seedling population density will be understood.

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6284-4821

[ramonawalls]

Thanks @celineauber, that is great to know. The general terms for plant density are widely used by plant ecologists doing, e.g. field surveys, so I think having both kinds of classes is important. Then AGRO and PO could just import the single-species classes. Do you think it would be more helpful to have the classes labeled as:

plant density

• plant density of a single-species population*
  -- seedling density of a single-species population*
• plant density of an ecological community
  -- seedling density of an ecological community
• seedling density
  -- seedling density of a single-species population (has two parents)
  -- seedling density of an ecological community (has two parents)

where you would only need to use the two classes with a star?

[celineaubert]

Hi Ramona,
What about using the term ''plant density'' for single-species population density, and using a term like ''plant density for multiple species'' for multi-species density?

[ramonawalls]

@celineaubert Unfortunately, that is not going to work if we need both single and multi-species density terms (which we do -- I am working on a project now that needs the multi-species density class), because plant density and seedling density would be the parent terms. However, I agree that having them as the parent terms could get confusing, because people will just pick that term instead of the more specific term, which is what they should use. Therefore, the parent terms need more specific labels as well, like plant density of a population or community. I don't really like those labels either, but they are important for clarity.

Since it would be convenient for breeder's to just use the labels 'plant density' and 'seedling density' for single species qualities, I suggest adding those as your preferred labels in AGRO. I can add them as broad synonyms in PCO.

[ramonawalls]

Also open to better name suggestions, as long as they are semantically unabiguous!

[celineaubert]

Agree with your proposed terms. I dont have a better name suggestion for now.

[ramonawalls]

Final labels and definitions:

-plant density
-- plant density of a population
--- seedling density of a population
-- plant density of an ecological community
--- seedling density of an ecological community
-- seedling density
--- seedling density of a population
--- seedling density of an ecological community

plant density: The density of plants in an ecological community or population, often measured as the number of plants per area.

seedling density: The density of seedlings in an ecological community or population, often measured as the number of seedlings per area.

plant density of a population: The density of plants in a population or organisms (a single species), often measured as the number of plants per area.

seedling density of a population: The density of seedlings in a population or organisms (a single species), often measured as the number of seedlings per area.

plant density of an ecological community: The density of plants in an ecological community (multiple species), often measured as the number of plants per area.

seedling density of an ecological community: The density of seedlings in an ecological community (multiple species), often measured as the number of plants per area.