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Towards an Ecological Trait-data Standard

View ORCID ProfileFlorian D. Schneider, View ORCID ProfileMalte Jochum, View ORCID ProfileGaëtane Le Provost, Andreas Ostrowski, View ORCID ProfileCaterina Penone, David Fichtmüller, View ORCID ProfileAnton Güntsch, View ORCID ProfileMartin M. Gossner, View ORCID ProfileBirgitta König-Ries, View ORCID ProfilePete Manning, View ORCID ProfileNadja K. Simons
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/328302
Florian D. Schneider
†Institute of Linguistics and Literary Studies, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
‡Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F) Frankfurt am Main, Germany
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  • For correspondence: florian.dirk.schneider@gmail.com
Malte Jochum
§Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
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Gaëtane Le Provost
‡Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F) Frankfurt am Main, Germany
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  • ORCID record for Gaëtane Le Provost
Andreas Ostrowski
║Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Jena, Germany
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Caterina Penone
§Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
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David Fichtmüller
¶Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
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Anton Güntsch
¶Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
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Martin M. Gossner
††Forest Entomology, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
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  • ORCID record for Martin M. Gossner
Birgitta König-Ries
║Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Jena, Germany
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Pete Manning
‡Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F) Frankfurt am Main, Germany
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Nadja K. Simons
**Department of Ecology and Ecosystem Management, Technische Universität München, Freising, Germany
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  • ORCID record for Nadja K. Simons
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Abstract

  1. Trait-based approaches are widespread throughout ecological research, offering great potential for trait data to deliver general and mechanistic conclusions. Accordingly,a wealth of trait data is available for many organism groups, but, due to a lack of standardisation, these data come in heterogeneous formats.

  2. We review current initiatives and infrastructures for standardising trait data and discuss the importance of standardisation for trait data hosted in distributed open-access repositories.

  3. In order to facilitate the standardisation and harmonisation of distributed trait datasets, we propose a general and simple vocabulary as well as a simple data structure for storing and sharing ecological trait data.

  4. Additionally, we provide an R-package that enables the transformation of any tabular dataset into the proposed format. This also allows trait datasets from heterogeneous sources to be harmonised and merged, thus facilitating data compilation for any particular research focus.

  5. With these decentralised tools for trait-data harmonisation, we intend to facilitate the exchange and analysis of trait data within ecological research and enable global syntheses of traits across a wide range of taxa and ecosystems.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
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Posted May 31, 2018.
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Towards an Ecological Trait-data Standard
Florian D. Schneider, Malte Jochum, Gaëtane Le Provost, Andreas Ostrowski, Caterina Penone, David Fichtmüller, Anton Güntsch, Martin M. Gossner, Birgitta König-Ries, Pete Manning, Nadja K. Simons
bioRxiv 328302; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/328302
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Towards an Ecological Trait-data Standard
Florian D. Schneider, Malte Jochum, Gaëtane Le Provost, Andreas Ostrowski, Caterina Penone, David Fichtmüller, Anton Güntsch, Martin M. Gossner, Birgitta König-Ries, Pete Manning, Nadja K. Simons
bioRxiv 328302; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/328302

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