Plant Data Synthesis

Integration of ecosystem science data can help us understand Earth’s biological resources and boost efforts to maintain biodiversity, help regulate atmospheric CO2 levels by enhancing carbon sinks and limiting carbon sources, and promote other ecosystem services.

This project brings together scientists from multiple institutions to integrate the wealth of plant trait data that exists around the world. Researchers will address problems in data base management, data mining and statistics, ecological scaling, biodiversity science, ecological extrapolation, and global carbon cycle modeling to create an integrated data base of plant information.

Complementary research initiatives will:

  1. create the world’s largest and most comprehensive plant trait data base and researcher network;
  2. support ongoing demographic, chemical, and ecosystem studies of forest diversity, community dynamics and biomass pools;
  3. bring together data from long-term ecological research sites across North America; and
  4. establish an interactive network linking leading ecosystem modelers with leading global change ecophysiologists.

Partners

Project Leads