austraits

austraits provides programmatic access to the AusTraits plant trait database and enables working with traits.build databases in R.

Key Features:

• Database Access: Retrieves data from the AusTraits database, a curated compilation of 448 plant traits across 28,640 taxa in the Australian flora.
• Traits Data Integration: Works with traits.build databases to synthesise field campaign data, published literature, taxonomic monographs, and individual taxon descriptions.
• Harmonised Data Handling: Processes curated individual- and species-level trait measurements coupled with contextual site properties and experimental conditions.

Scientific Applications:

• Plant Trait Analysis: Supports research on physiological measures including photosynthetic gas exchange and water-use efficiency.
• Morphological Studies: Enables analysis of morphological attributes such as leaf area, seed mass, and plant height linked to ecological variation.
• Ecological Research: Facilitates studies connecting trait variation to ecological patterns across the Australian flora.

Methodology:

The R package interfaces with the AusTraits database version 3.0.2, which contains 997,808 trait-by-taxon combinations.