TRY plant trait database – enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits - the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants - determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait‐based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits - almost complete coverage for ‘plant growth form’. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait–environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

To do no harm — and the most good — with AI in health care

Drawing from real-life scenarios and insights shared at the RAISE (Responsible AI for Social and Ethical Healthcare) conference, we highlight the critical need for AI in health care (AIH) to primarily benefit patients and address current shortcomings in health care systems such as medical errors and access disparities

An updated evolutionary classification of CRISPR–Cas systems

The evolution of CRISPR–cas loci, which encode adaptive immune systems in archaea and bacteria, involves rapid changes, in particular numerous rearrangements of the locus architecture and horizontal transfer of complete loci or individual modules. These dynamics complicate straightforward phylogenetic classification, but here we present an approach combining the analysis of signature protein families and features of the architecture of cas loci that unambiguously partitions most CRISPR–cas loci into distinct classes, types and subtypes. The new classification retains the overall structure of the previous version but is expanded to now encompass two classes, five types and 16 subtypes. The relative stability of the classification suggests that the most prevalent variants of CRISPR–Cas systems are already known. However, the existence of rare, currently unclassifiable variants implies that additional types and subtypes remain to be characterized.K.S.M., Y.I.W., D.H. and E.V.K. are supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Intramural Research Program at the National Library of Medicine, US Department of Health and Human Services. R.M.T. and M.P.T. are supported by NIH grants RO1 GM54682 and RO1 GM99876. J.v.d.O. was partly supported by SIAM Gravitation Grant 024.002.002 from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (N.W.O.). S.J.J.B. was financially supported by an NWO Vidi grant (864.11.005) and European Research Council (ERC) Stg (639707). A.F.Y. is supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Strategic Network Grant IBN and NSERC Discovery grant. S.M. acknowledges funding from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Discovery program) and holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Bacteriophages. F.J.M.M. is supported by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (BIO2014‑53029). R.B. is supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) grant (BA 2168/5‑2). S.A.S. and R.A.G. were funded primarily by the Danish Natural Science Research Council

TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access

10.1111/gcb.14904GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY261119-18