Description
FAIRTraits compiles and standardizes plant trait data collected over the 1997-2023 period on six sites by the same research group, ensuring that a consistent methology was followed. These data were obtained on individuals from 1,955 populations of 240 species belonging to 155 genera and 48 families (172 herbaceous and 39 woody species).
FAIRTraits contains 189,452 records for 183 quantitative traits from the different plant organs (leaves, stems, roots, and reproductive parts), which have been grouped into 10 categories: allocation ratio, architecture, chemistry, dynamics, mechanics, microbial associations, morphology, phenology, physiology and plant size. Trait values are given at the level of individual measurements.
The complete FAIRTraits database in composed of six other files. One is available at GBIF as a separate Darwin Core "Checklist" archive:
(1) FAIRTraits_Taxon, which gives further details on taxa;
The other five are available in the InDoRES repository, as .csv files. These are:
(2) FAIRTraits_MeteoSitesMonth.csv, which gives data on monthly averages of meteorological variables from the meteorological stations closest to the six sites;
(3) FAIRTraits_MeteoSitesYear.csv, which gives data on yearly averages of meteorological variables from the meteorological stations closest to the six sites;
(4) FAIRTraits_EnvironmentalPlots.csv, which gives information on georeferencing, treatments, type of soils and soil properties of plots in which environmental data were collected;
(5) FAIRTraits_DescriptionEnvVariables.csv, which gives a description of variables, methods and items found in files FAIRTraits_MeteoSitesMonth.csv, FAIRTraits_MeteoSitesYear.csv and FAIRTraits_EnvironmentalPlots.csv
(6) FAIRTraits_PublishedPapers.csv, which gives a list of scientific articles in which subsets of the database have been used.
A data paper submitted to the "Ecology" journal describes the database in detail.
Data Records
The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 189,452 records.
2 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
Versions
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
How to cite
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Garnier, E., Delalandre, L., Segrestin, J., Barkaoui, K., Kazakou, E., Navas, M.-L., Vile, D., Violle, C., Bellmann, A., Bernard-Verdier, M., Birouste, M., Blanchard, A., Bumb, I., Cruz, P., Debain, S., Fayolle, A., Fortunel, C., Grigulis, K., Laurent, G., Lavorel, S., Lloret, F., Pérez-Ramos, I. M., Prieto, I., Richarte, J. & Roumet, C.. FAIRTraits: an environmentally, methodologically and semantically enriched database of plant traits from Mediterranean populations of 240 species. Data paper to be published in Ecology (accepted 10 July 2025).
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle & Evolutive (CEFE). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC 4.0) License.
GBIF Registration
This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 3772c2f3-28e4-4e25-938a-93635e6642a2. Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle & Evolutive (CEFE) publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF France.
Keywords
Biodiversity standards; ecosystem properties; environmental conditions; Mediterranean Biogeographic Region; leaf stem and root traits; plant functional traits; gas exchange; litter mass loss; phenology; reproductive traits; terminological resources; trait-based ecology; Observation
Contacts
- Originator ●
- Point Of Contact
- Research Director
https://orcid.org/https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-5154
- Point Of Contact
- Research Director
- Point Of Contact
- Staff Researcher
- Distributor
Geographic Coverage
Trait data in FAIRTraits have been collected at the north-western edge of the Mediterranean Biogeographic Region, in five sites located in southern France and one site located in north-eastern Spain.
| Bounding Coordinates | South West [41.304, 1.891], North East [43.933, 6.587] |
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Taxonomic Coverage
Data were obtained on individuals from 240 species belonging to 155 genera and 48 families of higher plants. There were 238 Angiosperm and 2 Gymnosperm species. Further details are available in the FAIRTraits_Taxon GBIF archive.
| Family | Ericaceae, Poaceae, Geraniaceae, Buxaceae, Polygalaceae, Brassicaceae, Rubiaceae, Lamiaceae, Gentianaceae, Smilacaceae, Cistaceae, Araliaceae, Fabaceae, Crassulaceae, Violaceae, Campanulaceae, Fagaceae, Thymelaeaceae, Boraginaceae, Caprifoliaceae, Plantaginaceae, Resedaceae, Rhamnaceae, Viburnaceae, Sapindaceae, Rosaceae, Ranunculaceae, Saxifragaceae, Aristolochiaceae, Rutaceae, Cyperaceae, Vitaceae, Arecaceae, Apiaceae, Convolvulaceae, Oleaceae, Primulaceae, Asparagaceae, Cupressaceae, Linaceae, Caryophyllaceae, Pinaceae, Asteraceae, Orobanchaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Polygonaceae, Anacardiaceae, Thesiaceae |
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Temporal Coverage
| Start Date / End Date | 1997-10-21 / 2023-03-05 |
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Project Data
FAIRTraits assembles plant trait data collected by the ECOPAR research group at the Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (Montpellier), during the course of 12 research projects over the 1997-2023 period. Details of the individual projects are given in the "Related Projects" section below, and are further described in the data paper associated with FAIRTraits.
| Title | FAIRTraits |
|---|---|
| Funding | See below in the "Related Projects" section. |
| Project Award |
OpenMetaPaper French Ministry of Higher Education and Research AAPFNSO2019OpenMetaPaper-14026 |
| Related Projects |
MELODY: Mediterranean Landscapes in a Changing World: Coupling Dynamics and Functional Analyses (1997-2003) DynEcoMed: Dynamique des Ecosystèmes Méditerranéens dans un Monde Changeant (2001-2006) INDIGO: Une Nouvelle Perspective sur les Indicateurs de Diversité Végétale : Application à l’Etude des Conséquences de la Déprise Agricole et des Valeurs d’Usage des Prairies (2002-2006) VISTA: Vulnerability of Ecosystem Services to Land Use Change in Traditional Agricultural Landscapes (2002-2006) GEOTRAITS: Impacts des Traits Fonctionnels des Espèces Végétales sur les Cycles Biogéochimiques (2004-2007) DivHerbe: Structure, Diversité et Fonctionnement : des Clefs Multi-Echelles pour la Gestion des Prairies Permanentes (2006-2009) RESPIRS: The Root Economics Spectrum and InfraRed Spectroscopy (2010-2012) O2LA: Organismes et Organisations Localement Adaptés (2010-2015) CASCADE: Interactions Trophiques et Fonctionnement des Ecosystèmes Terrestres : une Approche Fonctionnelle et Chimique (2013-2014) PhenBiom: Phenology and Biomechanics of Plants in the Mediterranean (2013-2018) COMODO: Connecter les Mondes Verts et Bruns : Ecologie Trophique des Détritivores et des Phytophages en Prairie Permanente (2015-2017) FageAnnuals: Functional Ecology of Annual Plant Species from a Mediterranean Rangeland (2012-2023) |
The personnel involved in the project:
- Content Provider
- Content Provider
- Author
- Author
- Content Provider
- Author
- Content Provider
- Content Provider
Additional Metadata
| Acknowledgements | The 12 research projects which led to the initial collection of data compiled in FAIRTraits are listed in Table 2 of the data paper describing the database submitted to Ecology. The work to prepare the database in its published format has benefited from the most welcome and enthusiastic assistance of Sophie Parmerlon (GBIF France), Yvan le Bras and Olivier Norvez (both at the Pôle National des Données de la Biodiversité), in the context of the OpenMetaPaper project funded by the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research (FNSO project AAPFNSO2019OpenMetaPaper-14026) |
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| Alternative Identifiers | 3772c2f3-28e4-4e25-938a-93635e6642a2 |
| https://ipt.gbif.fr/resource?r=fair_traits |