4. Table summaries

The biods database has 12 tables.

The following is a listing and brief outline of the main tables and the relationships between them in the

biods database:

• Meta :
  Contains meta information and setup ownership of the data. With meta records in this table, some of the data maintaining work becomes very easy.

• Survey :
  Contains survey/trip/voyage information for sampling activities in which biods data are collected.
  

• Taxon :
  Contains taxonomy information. Notice this table is self-referenced, so it can accommodate any level of taxonomic information by assigning an appropriate level number.
  

• Taxon Detail :
  Contains detailed taxonomy information. One taxonomic record can have multiple records in this table.

• Site :
  Contains site/location information for sampling activities in which biods data are collected.

  The relationship between Survey and Site is optional, meaning a site record may be without a survey to refer to. This reflects the reality in that sites information can be reused by more surveys.

  This table is also self-referenced, so it can accommodate any combination of location relationships, e.g. Port-berth-pile-quadrat, port-berth-sled-replicate, beach-stratum-transectquadrat- replicate, etc. The hierarchy structure definition should be described in the notes column of the top level site record.

• Habitat :
  Contains habitat information related to a site.

• Effort :
  Contains sampling effort information for surveys. It can also accommodate total catch/samples resulting from each sampling effort.

• Sample :
  Contains sample information for sampling efforts. The relationship to the Site table may be redundant, but in some cases it's necessary, and also improves query efficiency. Samples caught from a sampling effort can be divided into several groups based on a super species classification (like genus), these groups will be further classified based on different species.

  To reflect this flexible data structure, this table is also a self-referenced, the hierarchy structure definition should be described in the notes column of the top level sample record.

• Archive :
  Contains specimens/files/photos catalogue information for sampling, sites, or samples.

• Method:
  Contains method information for sampling effort.

• Organisation :
  Contains information related to organizations, persons who have some associations with the samples

• Allocation:
  Contains sample allocation information. A sample can be allocated to multiple organizations, an organization can accept multiple samples.