Abstract
Understanding variation of traits within and among species through time and across space is central to many questions in biology. Many resources assemble species-level trait data, but the data and metadata underlying those trait measurements are often not reported. Here, we introduce FuTRES (Functional Trait Resource for Environmental Studies; pronounced few-tress), an online datastore and community resource for individual-level trait reporting that utilizes a semantic framework. FuTRES already stores millions of trait measurements for paleobiological, zooarchaeological, and modern specimens, with a current focus on mammals. We compare dynamically derived extant mammal species' body size measurements in FuTRES with summary values from other compilations, highlighting potential issues with simply reporting a single mean estimate. We then show that individual-level data improve estimates of body mass—including uncertainty—for zooarchaeological specimens. FuTRES facilitates trait data integration and discoverability, accelerating new research agendas, especially scaling from intra- to interspecific trait variability.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 105101 |
Journal | iScience |
Volume | 25 |
Issue number | 10 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Oct 21 2022 |
Keywords
- Animals
- Biological database
- Evolutionary history
- Ornithology
- Paleobiology
- Phylogenetics
- Systematics
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General