Need clarification on "bulk soil"

[cmungall]

bulk soil ENVO:00005802 - Soil that is not penetrated by the root systems of plants

Is the name completely clear? Many people will look at the label and assume that it means soil in bulk

For example, there is an open request:

• bulk soil density: #375

This is not a request for density of "bulk soil"

Obviously the distinction between rhizospheric vs non rhizospheric soil is crucial, and we want to make sure curators capture this consistently.

I recommend

• renaming to rhizospheric soil, and keeping bulk soil as a synonym
• introducing a sibling class for rhizosphere soil

This is still problematic as it exemplifies the ragged lattice anti-pattern

Note that we have a class for rhizosphere which is immaterial: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ols/ontologies/envo/terms?iri=http%3A%2F%2Fpurl.obolibrary.org%2Fobo%2FENVO_00005801

[pbuttigieg]

Is the name completely clear? Many people will look at the label and assume that it means soil in bulk

I think it would be clear to pedologists, but not generally.

For example, there is an open request:

bulk soil density:

New class: soil bulk density #375

This is not a request for density of "bulk soil"

Yes, different meaning, but the qualifier itself is ambiguous with a specialist vs general meaning.

renaming to rhizospheric soil, and keeping bulk soil as a synonym introducing a sibling class for rhizosphere soil

One could interchange those labels - did you mean non-rhizospheric soil? Not so keen there, as we're defining something by what it's not, but it is better (to the general user) than "bulk soil".

Note that we have a class for rhizosphere which is immaterial

Legacy from the sites vs material entities issues - this could be moved somewhere under "ecosystem" now