Empirical Module

The Empirical Measurements module aggregates datasets of observations taken in the field, lab or greenhouse, often provided by the data authors themselves.

By working together with data authors and potential users, TOPIC 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.

Data Request

Requestors interested in using datasets should begin by expressing their interest to the Database Manager (see Contact information). You will be asked to submit a collaboration agreement proposal (form provided) outlining the study rationale, its objectives and expected outputs of your project, and detailing which dataset(s) you are requesting. You should also include a description of how you propose to acknowledge the data author(s)’s contribution to the project.

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
  • Promote potential transdisciplinary collaboration


With the approval of the dataset author, TOPIC will showcase a summarized form of the metadata for the dataset on this page and promote future 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 Furthermore, datasets can be withdrawn from TOPIC at any time. Data authors can also choose to simply communicate the necessary metadata so as to include it in TOPIC.

Which datasets are relevant for TOPIC ?

Dataset contributions can include either one or multiple characteristics, for one or more Canadian plant species. The experimental unit should be the individual plant or part of a plant (e.g. seed, leaf, root section) 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.

Please contact the Database manager if you would like to contribute a dataset or if you have any other questions.