Fig. 1
From: A minimum data standard for wildlife disease research and surveillance
Examples of one-to-one, many-to-one, and one-to-many relationships between fields of the minimum data standard, including commonly-encountered “special cases.” In a simple study design (top row), one sample corresponds to one animal, one sampling method, one parasite test, and potentially, one parasite detection. However, in other studies, multiple samples may be collected from the same animal (e.g., blood and wing punch collected from a bat), a single sample may be tested multiple times (e.g., the blood sample is screened for both coronaviruses and paramyxoviruses), or multiple parasites may be detected in one sample (e.g., the blood sample tests positive for a coronavirus and a paramyxovirus) (second row). Nested detections (third row) can occur when a parasite associated with one animal itself harbors another parasite (e.g., a flea is sampled from a rat, and the flea also tests positive for Yersinia pestis). Researchers may also combine samples from multiple animals into a single pooled sample (bottom row). In some cases, the associated animals are “unidentified” (e.g., a pooled sample of 30 mosquitoes). However, if a researcher does have data on each animal linked to a pooled sample, they can provide it in an additional file.
