Metrics on current versions of the BCO, ENVO, and PCO.

1<p>. For BCO and PCO, the number of relations includes only relations that point to a BCO or PCO term, to adjust for the large proportion of imported terms.</p>2<p>. 39 imported from Basic Formal Ontology, 13 imported from Information Artifact Ontology, 10 imported from Ontology for Biomedical Investigations, 1 imported from Common Anatomy Reference Ontology.</p>3<p>. 172 imported from Chemical Entities of Biological Interest, 49 from Phenotypic Quality Ontology.</p>4<p>. 39 imported from Basic Formal Ontology, 1269 imported from Gene Ontology, 11 imported from Information Artifact Ontology, 2 imported from Common Anatomy Reference Ontology.</p

Structured sampling schemes.

<p>(<b>A</b>) Biological sampling can be structured in both space and time. Environmental sampling of ocean water often includes sampling along a transect, with samples collected at multiple depths at each location. Additionally, each sample of water collected may be subsampled for metagenomic analysis or measuring chemical content. (<b>B</b>) Sampling schemes in ecological studies are often nested and may include plot; subplot or transect within plot; individual within plot, subplot, or transect; organ (e.g., leaf) within individual; tissue within organ; and DNA or mineral (e.g., C or N) within tissue. DNA extracted from a leaf of a tree that is present in a sub-plot may therefore be characterized by environmental features of the plot.</p

Linking data across sites in the Genomic Observatories network's Ocean Sampling Day.

<p>(<b>A</b>) Ocean Sampling Day involves the simultaneous sampling of the world's oceans on a single day, as represented by the red stars on the map of the earth. Multiple ocean water sampling processes take place at each location. Those water samples are filtered to produce samples of organismal communities that are submitted to the bioarchive at the Smithsonian Institution. A subsample of the filtered material is analyzed to produce a metagenomic sequence, which may be stored in the Genomes Online Database (<a href="http://www.genomesonline.org/cgi-bin/GOLD/index.cgi" target="_blank">GOLD</a>). To be useful in comparative studies, data from each process at each location must be accessible and interpretable. (<b>B</b>) A graphical representation of how part of the workflow shown in <b>A</b> (from ocean water sampling to filtering to metagenomic sequencing) can be annotated with terms from multiple, coordinated ontologies and queried via an ontology-based data store. Ontology classes are shown as ovals and instances are shown as rectangles, with instances color-coded to match their parent classes. This figure shows how a metagenomic sequence and the taxa associated with it can be linked back to the original Ocean Sampling Day collecting event through a chain of inputs and outputs.</p

Linking samples and derivatives from the Moorea Biocode project.

<p>(<b>A</b>) Biodiversity data from the Moorea Biocode project were collected at many different levels that are connected to one another in biologically meaningful ways, such as an Essig Museum specimen collected as part of a Biocode bioinventory event, a tissue sample submitted to the Smithsonian Institution, a metagenomic gut sample collected from the specimen and registered with the <a href="http://camera.calit2.net/" target="_blank">CAMERA portal</a>, or DNA extracted from either the tissue or metagenomic sample. (<b>B</b>) A graphical representation of how part of the workflow shown in <b>A</b> (from field collection to tissue sampling to DNA extraction) can be annotated with terms from multiple, coordinated ontologies and queried via an ontology-based data store. Ontology classes are shown as ovals and instances are shown as rectangles, with instances color-coded to match their parent classes. This figure shows how, for example, TaxonID B resulting from the BLAST identification process on Genbank sequence B can be linked back to the original Moorea Biocode sampling process, or how a chain of inputs and outputs can be used to infer that an instance of DNA molecules is derived from an instance of an insect specimen.</p

Core terms of the Biological Collections Ontology (BCO) and their relations to upper ontologies.

<p>Core BCO terms (in orange) are subclasses of terms from the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO – in yellow) or the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI – in blue). For example, BCO:<i>material sample</i> is a subclass of BFO:<i>material entity</i> and has role BFO:<i>material sample role</i> (which is a BFO:<i>role</i>), while BFO:<i>material sampling process</i> is a subclass of OBI:<i>planned process</i>, and has as specified output BCO:<i>material sample</i>.</p