CROPTRAITS

Understanding agrobiodiversity – i.e., the diversity of cultivated species, varieties and their functional traits – is essential to advance biodiversity science and design resilient, sustainable agroecosystems. Yet key questions remain unresolved:

• What is the spectrum of phenotypic diversity in agrobiodiverse systems?
• How do crops functionally differ from wild relatives or non-cultivated plants?
• Can traits robustly capture crop adaptation to environmental constraints?
• Does crop functional diversity enhance agroecosystem multifunctionality and stability?

 

Addressing these questions is crucial to identify, among more than 6,000 cultivated species and countless varieties, those best suited to current climatic, environmental and social challenges, while improving our understanding of the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of this overlooked biodiversity component. Although trait data on agrobiodiversity have accumulated for decades, they remain scattered across datasets often restricted to single species or domestication groups, limiting large-scale comparative analyses.

 

To fill this gap, we will develop CROPTRAITS, a comprehensive and up-to-date database of functional traits of cultivated plants. CROPTRAITS will integrate existing expert datasets and literature-derived data, covering morphological, physiological and phenological traits across broad taxonomic and geographic ranges. Trait data will be recorded at fine taxonomic resolution to capture intraspecific variability. Built as a relational SQL database following international standards and FAIR principles, CROPTRAITS will be interoperable with major biodiversity and agrobiodiversity platforms and openly accessible through a dedicated web interface and a data paper.