Empirical module
The Empirical module contains datasets collected within the scope of field or lab studies, often provided by the data authors themselves. By working together with data authors and potential users, CRITTER acts as an intermediary to promote collaboration, ensure recognition of the effort involved in data collection, and facilitate integration of these data from across Canada.
Call for data contributions
We invite specialists to contribute their datasets on plant traits to:
- Provide long-term data storage
- Centralise documentation from across Canada on plant functional traits
- Recognize the effort required to collect data
- romote potential transdisciplinary collaboration
Data ownership remains with the data author or the data author’s institution; access to datasets can be restricted, conditional or denied according to the instructions of the data author. Furthermore, datasets can be withdrawn from CRITTER at any time. Data authors can also choose to simply communicate the necessary metadata and will showcase a summarized form of the metadata on this page, promoting future collaboration.
Which datasets are relevant for CRITTER?
Dataset contributions can include either one or multiple characteristics, for one or more Canadian invertebrate species. The experimental unit should be the individual or part of an individual (e.g. mandibule, leg) and not the population, community or species assemblage; the experimental unit should be identified at the species level. Field data should be georeferenced, wherever possible. Any invertebrate of species present in Canada is considered of interest to the CRITTER database.
Requesting data
Parties interested in requesting and using datasets should begin by expressing their interest to the Database Manager (see Contact page). You will be then required to submit a collaboration agreement proposal outlining the study, objectives and expected outputs of your project. You should also include a description of how you propose to acknowledge the data author(s)’s contribution to the project. The dataset will be released only when all parties have agreed on the conditions of data exchange.