Attribution
The AusTraits Database Portal was designed by Pushkal Garg , Fonti Kar , Daniel Falster , Elizabeth Wenk , and Ray Miles .
The AusTraits Database and design of this portal are supported by an UNSW Research Infrastructure Grant and Australian Research Data Commons co-investment. The ARDC is enabled by the Australian Government's National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).
Background
The AusTraits Database Portal offers a web-based interface to filter, view and download subsets of the AusTraits Database. The full database can also be downloaded from Zenodo as an .rds or .json file.
The Zenodo repository lists all researchers who have contributed their data to AusTraits. We thank them for being part of this project.
Additional AusTraits Project outputs to wrangle and interpret the data include:
- austraits - an R package to explore and wrangle the AusTraits Database
- AusTraits Plant Dictionary – formal definitions of all traits included in the database
Please visit our website for more project information.
The AusTraits database is facilitating research on Australia's diverse flora, including functional traits research, the preservation of Australia's unique plants, predicting species' responses to climate change, and understanding ecosystem dynamics at a continental scale.
How to Use
Dataset type — Raw data or Species averages? Raw data has the individual observations submitted by contributors while Species averages presents species-level summary statistics (mean, min, max, median for numeric traits and value summaries for categorical traits). Pick based on the question you're asking.
Taxonomy — Choose a taxonomic filter - Select All taxa or Family, Genus, or Taxon name (species and infraspecies), then select from the dropdown that appears. Family (Fabaceae) is selected as the default starting point.
Traits — Search or browse the trait dropdown – noting you can select multiple traits at a time. Switch to Trait features if you want to search by trait groupings, measured structures, or keywords. Enabling trait features filters also refines the trait selection in the dropdown menu, for easier searching. Note, Trait features is only enabled if a trait name is not yet selected.
Location — Data can be filtered by taxon distribution (per the APC) or by observation coordinates. You can opt to display all georeferenced data or specify a bounding box, filtering to data collected within a specific region of Australia. The APC taxon distribution (state/territory) filter works for both raw data and species average data outputs, while the Georeferenced records option is only enabled when Raw data are displayed.
Custom filters — Add up to three additional column filters to fine-tune the data displayed. An additional filter slot appears once you've filled in a column name and values for the first filter. Columns with a controlled vocabulary (e.g. life_stage ) have a drop-down menu of allowed options, while other columns (e.g. context property ) accept any text. Please use | between two free-text filter queries to multi-select.
Data Preview — Your filtered results, viewable 10, 25, 50, or 100 rows at a time. Columns are sortable.
Portal Usage
Metrics are updated in real time and reflect cumulative portal activity.
Usage Guidelines
Citing AusTraits — The Citations tab indicates the proper attribution for your selected AusTraits data.
Feedback — Something off? A suggestion bubbling up? We're always keen to hear from people using the portal. Get in touch through the AusTraits website .