Evolutionary Characters, Phenotypes and Ontologies: Curating Data from the Systematic Biology Literature
Figure 1
A systematic character and state, compared to a phenotype represented by Entity-Quality syntax.
In EQ syntax, the entity being described is represented by a term from an anatomical ontology, and the variable (“characteristic”) aspect of the entity is represented using a term chosen from a quality ontology. Note that the “shape” attribute is an explicit part of the systematic character but is expressed only implicitly within the quality term.