Consider table "individual"

[niconoe]

In GitLab by @peterdesmet on Sep 8, 2020, 20:14

Note: this was suggested in the 2020-09-08 EUROMAMMAL technical call

individual_id in observations allows to indicate repeat viewings of individuals, but apart from the sex and the life_stage (at the time) no further information (like other tag numbers) can be provided. Information on recognizable/marked individuals that did were not observed by the camera traps cannot be shared either.

To share this information, we could consider adding an extra file individuals.csv, where further information regarding recognizable/marked individuals can be shared. Fields could be:

• individual_id
• scientific_name
• life_stage: debatable since it can change over time
• sex: not likely to change for camera trap observed species
• other_identifiers: e.g. ring_number:HR456; movebank_id:894
• comments

But I think this needs further community feedback before we can decide if and how this should be part of the standard.

[peterdesmet]

Note the example dataset now includes an individuals resource, but only to showcase that it is possible to include non Camtrap DP resources in a Camtrap DP dataset (as long as they don't use the reserved names deployments, ...)

[sannegovaert]

See inbo/camtrapdp#149

[peterdesmet]

This is now implemented in the camtrapdp R package, as a derived table from observations. There are a couple of such tables:

• locations(): from deployments
• taxa(): from observations + taxonomic
• events(): from observations
• individuals(): from observations

We won't add an individual table to the Camtrap DP model:

• There is no use case for it
• There is an easy helper function in camtrapdp to generate one from observations
• It is always possible to add a custom table

We will extend the example dataset to include individual info (see #396).