Abstract

This project seeks to create an international consensus metadata scheme for the field of animal behavior.

Issue

The behavior of wild animals is increasingly recognized as a key element in conservation programs, wildlife management, and assessment of habitat health and integrity. Now that it is possible to archive and distribute sound and video recordings of animal behavior, there is an urgent need to standardize the descriptive metadata attached to each recording because no such standard exists. This project draws on internationally distributed experts to create that standard and make it available as a registered ontology available to all.

Response

Extensive reading material was distributed to participants in Winter 2004. This was followed by a workshop at Cornell attended by experts in animal behavior from around the world. The first draft of the metadata standard was then posted on the web at: http://ethodata.comm.nsdl.org, where international input was solicited. A second meeting in 2005 will assemble the input, make changes, and post a final consensus standard in the international registry of such thesauri and ontologies.

Impact

An animal behavior module has been seriously missed by many institutions cataloguing and monitoring environmental information. The draft consensus has already been adopted by several institutions as a model for their own metadata structures. Once formalized, we expect it to be incorporated worldwide into many different contexts.

Funding Sources

• Other Federal non-USDA (e.g., NSF, NIH, DOA, DOD)

Collaborators

• Binghamton University (SUNY)
• Oxford University
• Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology

Key Personnel

• Dr. Jack W. Bradbury, Cornell University, Macaulay Library at Cornell Lab of Ornithology
• Dr. Anne Clark, Binghamton University, Department of Biological Sciences, Binghamton, New York