FAIRTraits

As measurable properties of individuals related to their functioning and modulating their fitness, traits are key to a functional, non-taxonomic approach to biodiversity. They enable us to capture the interactions between organisms and their environment (both abiotic and biotic), and to establish links among the different levels of organization represented in ecological systems. There is a growing consensus that a trait-based approach has a strong potential to tackle key issues in ecology. A non-exhaustive list includes (i) the functioning of organisms and how it relates to the environment, (ii) the understanding of unsolved questions in community ecology such as the identification of rules governing the assembly of communities, (iii) the understanding of how the functioning of organisms scales up to that of ecosystems and controls some of the services they deliver to humans. The FAIRTraits data set represents an effort to compile and standardize trait data collected over the 1998-2021 period on 242 species (<span style="background:red;mso-highlight:red">> 3500 populations</span>), to address a number of these questions in the pedo-climatic context of the north-western edge of the Mediterranean Biogeographic Region. FAIRTraits contains more than <span style="background:red;mso-highlight:red">200,000</span> records for <span style="background:red;mso-highlight:red">180</span> quantitative traits. These data provide information on morpho-anatomical leaf (length, width, thickness, dry matter content, specific leaf area, carbon isotopic fraction, etc.) and root (diameter, specicfic root length, dry matter content, etc.) traits, chemical leaf, stem and root traits (carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, etc.), life history traits (vegetative and reproductive heights, seed mass and number), as well as physiological traits (photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, root respiration, etc.) and rates of leaf, stem and root mass loss. Trait values are given at the level of individual (i.e. not aggregated) measurements. Species are characterized by plant family, life cycle, Raunkiaer lifeform, photosynthetic pathway, and we give additional height and phenological information taken from a Mediterranean flora. Astrait values strongly depend on environmetal conditions, we also provideinformation on the climatic conditions of the sites, and on disturbancelevels and soil properties of the plots in which sampled individuals were collected.Importantly, we use several standards to semantically enrich the data: beyond the Ecological Metadata Language for metadata, the fields of the data set have been mapped to the Darwin Core biodiversity standard, and whenever possible, we use taxonomical and terminological resources to qualify taxa and attributes. In addition,fully described sampling protocols and measurement methods are given both for traits and environmental data. The full data set is avaibale on the GBIF data portal, while the metedata are deposited on the “Pôle National des Données de la Biodiversité� portal. We believe that these further efforts will make this data set truly FAIR, that is Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable.