Ludwig Baldaszti
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baldasztil.bsky.social
Ludwig Baldaszti
@baldasztil.bsky.social
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PhD student at The Botanics Edinburgh + Edinburgh Uni |
Interested in finding ways to better integrate plant biodiversity distribution data in global conservation efforts and big plant genera
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Reposted by Ludwig Baldaszti
jess-rickenback.bsky.social
Published! Open letter:There are more than just trees and forests to be conserved and restored.
Tropical & subtropical grasslands & savannas matter for biodiversity protection, and the future of this planet relies on these ecosystems to the same extent it relies on forests.
doi.org/10.1002/ppp3...
Open letter: There are more than just trees and forests to be conserved and restored
Click on the article title to read more.
doi.org
January 16, 2025 at 10:47 AM
Reposted by Ludwig Baldaszti
frodsan.bsky.social
1/ Important read for anyone using, contributing, or building large databases by aggregating data sources. Discusses issues with data quality, duplication, credit attribution, etc, and includes recommendations for improvement

doi.org/10.1111/gcb.... #ecopubs
Improper data practices erode the quality of global ecological databases and impede the progress of ecological research The scientific community has entered an era of big data. However, with big data comes big responsibilities, and best practices for how data are contributed to databases have not kept pace with the collection, aggregation, and analysis of big data. Here, we rigorously assess the quantity of data for specific leaf area (SLA) available within the largest and most frequently used global plant trait database, the TRY Plant Trait Database, exploring how much of the data were applicable (i.e., original, representative, logical, and comparable) and traceable (i.e., published, cited, and consistent). Over three-quarters of the SLA data in TRY either lacked applicability or traceability, leaving only 22.9% of the original data usable compared with the 64.9% typically deemed usable by standard data cleaning protocols. The remaining usable data differed markedly from the original for many species, which led to altered interpretation of ecological analyses. Though the data we consider here make up only 4.5% of SLA data within TRY, similar issues of applicability and traceability likely apply to SLA data for other species as well as other commonly measured, uploaded, and downloaded plant traits. We end with suggested steps forward for global ecological databases, including suggestions for both uploaders to and curators of databases with the hope that, through addressing the issues raised here, we can increase data quality and integrity within the ecological community.
November 29, 2024 at 11:01 AM