TRY Workshops

Since 2007 five international workshops have been conducted in the context of the TRY initiative: four workshops open to all members of TRY and focused on design and development of the initiative; one workshop focused on data analysis.

The open workshops have proven to be essential for the progress of the TRY initiative: first to establish and refine the mode of cooperation and data exchange and second to support the communication between scientists contributing and using plant trait data. This communication is considered essential for the future development of the TRY initiative. Therefore we are planning to continue this series of open workshops.

Depending of the availability of funding additional workshops focused on a specific topic may become possible to provide a kick-off start for trait-based projects.

Open Workshop 5: Leipzig, Germany, 3-5 September 2013

Quantifying and scaling global plant trait diversity

• Recent developments in the context of the TRY initiative
• Supporting cooperation on core research topics
• Refining the TRY initiative

Workshop Report: pdf

Open Workshop 4: Paris, France, 25-27(29) March 2011

This was a joint workshop with the Fast-Track Initiative of the Global Land Project: 'Decreasing uncertainty in predicting biome boundary shifts' (BBS). The workshop was focused on:

• Presenting ongoing projects using plant trait data via the TRY initiative
• Integrating plant trait data into vegetation models

Workshop Report TRY: pdf
Workshop Report BBS: pdf

Topic Workshop: Jena, Germany, 4-8 October 2010

Towards a global multidimensional spectrum of plant function

This workshop was focused on determining a global multidimensional spectrum of plant function in the context of the TRY project 23.

Open Workshop 3: Cape Town, South Africa, 17-18 October 2009

This was a joint workshop with the Fast-Track Initiative of the Global Land Project: Decreasing uncertainty in predicting biome boundary shifts (BBS). The workshop was focused on:

• Improving regional and global models of vegetation dynamics and ecosystem function towards the representation of the dynamics of community-level diversity, especially through response to disturbance and migration;
• Expanding and developing applications for the TRY global plant functional trait database. The plant trait database is being used in a first phase for developing and parameterizing regional and global vegetation models, but we also would like to expand its use to other areas of ecology and biogeography.

Workshop Report: pdf

Open Workshop 2: Paris, France, 19-21 April 2008

Organized by DIVERSITAS and MPI-BGC. During this workshop the structure and preliminary contents of the TRY database were presented, first model-data integration activities were initiated, and the intellectual property guidelines to organize data-sharing within TRY were established.

Open Workshop 1: Alicante, Spain, 7-9 February 2007

Organized by Juli Pausas. During this workshop a list of core traits was established, relevant in the context of vegetation reaction to fast and slow environmental changes and disturbances. This list was used as basis to contact potential contributors of databases.