Assemble
Bring together field data, literature tables, floras, taxonomic descriptions, and researcher-contributed datasets.
Open trait data for Australian plants
Explore AusTraits
Trait data for Australia's flora, harmonised and ready for ecological research, biodiversity infrastructure, and conservation decision-making.
500+
plant traits
30,000+
plant taxa
400+
data sources
340+
data contributors
CC-BY 4.0
open data licence
FAIR
metadata-rich resource
Infrastructure
Built to make trait data reusable
AusTraits synthesises plant trait data from field campaigns, published literature, taxonomic monographs, and individual taxon descriptions. The database integrates contributions from functional plant biology, plant physiology, plant taxonomy, conservation biology, and related disciplines.
Entries are linked to detailed metadata, harmonised against trait definitions, and checked for consistency.
The resource has grown over nearly a decade of collaboration and sustained investment — see the project history.
Workflow
From scattered observations to reliable infrastructure
AusTraits keeps the workflow visible: original sources are preserved, trait concepts are standardised, and releases are archived so analyses can be repeated later.
Harmonise
Align names, trait definitions, units, methods, value types, and metadata into a relational database.
Publish
Release versioned data, documentation, R tooling, and linked biodiversity outputs for reuse.
Access
Access data via diverse pathways
Choose the route that matches how you want to use the resource: download a full release, work programmatically, follow a tutorial, or connect through linked biodiversity platforms.
Dataset releases
Download compiled AusTraits releases from Zenodo under an open CC-BY 4.0 licence.
R interface
Download, join, filter, explore, and visualise AusTraits data in analysis workflows.
Tutorials
Follow worked examples for exploring and analysing data using project tooling.
ALA integration
Access taxon-level trait summaries through Atlas of Living Australia pages.
Data portal
Browse, filter, and download AusTraits data interactively in the browser — no code required.
Traceable
Every record keeps its context
AusTraits is a relational, metadata-rich resource. Trait values, taxonomic concepts, methods, sources, and contextual information are kept explicit so users can trace and evaluate the data they use.
Tools
An ecosystem for harmonised trait data
AusTraits is supported by open tools that help researchers build, access, align, and interpret harmonised trait databases.
traits.build
Data model & workflow for building harmonised ecological trait databases ... more
austraits
R interface for accessing, wrangling, combining, and visualising data.... more
APCalign
An R package and Shiny app for aligning Australian vascular plant names... more
APD
Formal vocabulary for trait concepts, definitions, allowed values, units, and links ... more
Coverage
Expanding coverage of the Australian flora
AusTraits includes thousands of trait values extracted from taxonomic descriptions (Coleman et al. 2023).
We have gap-filled near-complete trait tables for core traits such as life history, plant growth form, and woodiness (Wenk et al. 2024).
Planned extensions:
- Near-complete coverage of plant height and leaf size.
- Species- and location-level trait summaries.
- Pollination traits.
Taxonomic descriptions
570,000 values
Core gap-filled traits
Near-complete tables
Species summaries
Planned
Get involved
Contribute data or get in touch
AusTraits is built on data contributed by 340+ researchers. We'd love to hear how you use AusTraits, and to help with contributing new or legacy datasets, access, or citation. Email austraits.database@gmail.com.