A generic structure for plant trait databases

1. Plant traits are fundamental for understanding and predicting vegetation responses to global
changes, and they provide a promising basis towards a more quantitative and predictive approach
to ecology. As a consequence, information on plant traits is rapidly accumulating, and there is a
growing need for efficient database tools that enable the assembly and synthesis of trait data.
2. Plant traits are highly heterogeneous, exhibit a low degree of standardization and are linked and
interdependent at various levels of biological organization: tissue, organ, plant and population.
Therefore, they often require ancillary data for interpretation, including descriptors of the biotic
and abiotic environment, methods and taxonomic relationships.
3. We introduce a generic database structure that is tailored to accommodate plant trait complexity
and is consistent with current theoretical approaches to characterize the structure of observational
data. The over-arching utility of the proposed database structure is illustrated based on two independent
plant trait database projects.
4. The generic database structure proposed here is meant to serve as a flexible blueprint for future
plant trait databases, improving data discovery, and ensuring compatibility among them.