ShareTrait: towards interoperable and reusable individual trait-based data in ectotherms

More and more data on species traits are being collected and made openly available. Despite these efforts, effective syntheses of trait data to comprehend how species respond to and affect their environment are hampered by inadequate standards for publishing the data and the associated metadata, which limits the interoperability and reuse of data across studies. We have developed ShareTrait (https://sharetrait.org/), a novel initiative that consolidates individual-level trait data and associated metadata in an interoperable and reusable format, enabling standardised and integrated use. As a proof-of-concept, we initially focus on three core traits of ectotherms: metabolic rate, development time and fecundity. These traits, measurable in almost all animals, are fundamental to an organism’s overall fitness. ShareTrait enables researchers to share their (meta)data with the research community. To date, researchers from diverse fields have contributed 28,692 individual-level data records to ShareTrait. These records originated from 45 datasets and are just the tip of the iceberg of existing data, highlighting the potential of ShareTrait to be a valuable community resource for meta-analyses and comparative approaches. Future directions of ShareTrait will focus on accumulating more records, expanding to cover more traits, including those measurable at the population level, and partnering with journals in relevant fields (ecology, physiology, evolution) to make sharing standardised trait data part of the standard publication process. We envision ShareTrait, along with its digital infrastructure and comprehensive metadata, to be a catalyst for collating trait data across species. ShareTrait can streamline research efforts, minimise duplication and empower researchers to explore patterns and broader ecological, evolutionary and physiological questions among taxa (e.g. via meta-analyses and comparative approaches). This way, ShareTrait will unlock new frontiers in trait-based approaches, enhancing our understanding of species–environment relationships. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.