The goal of the
Global Biotraits Database is to create an online portal for the housing
and dissemination of empirical data about how natural systems respond
to environmental drivers, such as water, temperature, light, and
pressure. This database represents, by far, the largest and most
comprehensive biological trait database ever compiled. We expect
researchers from a wide diversity of disciplines, such as ecology,
biology, cell biology, agriculture, entomology, botany, biostatistics,
physics, and computer science, to use these data to shed light on how
natural systems respond to environmental drivers.
When logged on to the site, users will be able to download available
datasets and upload their own data. We hope that our website will
become a central portal for the management and accession of data on
biological traits.
Work on the website is funded by an NSF grant with PIs not only from
Biomath but also from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary
Biology (Priyanga Amarasekare and also Tony Dell, who has a joint
appointment) at UCLA. So, by design, the project connects two
departments that bridge the Medical School and FAS at UCLA. Moreover,
interest and excitement in using this site has been expressed by
faculty (at UCLA and other campuses) in the departments of Ecology,
Biology, Cell Biology, Agriculture, Entomology, Botany, Biostatistics,
Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science, and national centers that
include National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS),
NESCENT, NIMBIOS, and MBI.
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