title: Towards recommendations for metadata and data handling in plant phenotyping.
abstract: Recent methodological developments in plant phenotyping, as well as the growing importance of its applications in plant science and breeding, are resulting in a fast accumulation of multidimensional data. There is great potential for expediting both discovery and application if these data are made publicly available for analysis. However, collection and storage of phenotypic observations is not yet sufficiently governed by standards that would ensure interoperability among data providers and precisely link specific phenotypes and associated genomic sequence information. This lack of standards is mainly a result of a large variability of phenotyping protocols, the multitude of phenotypic traits that are measured, and the dependence of these traits on the environment. This paper discusses the current situation of standardization in the area of phenomics, points out the problems and shortages, and presents the areas that would benefit from improvement in this field. In addition, the foundations of the work that could revise the situation are proposed, and practical solutions developed by the authors are introduced.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Plant Genetics, Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Strzeszyńska 34, Poznań, Poland pkra@igr.poznan.pl.
authors.forename: Paweł
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Krajewski
authors.affiliation: Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), OT Gatersleben, Corrensstrasse 3, D-06466 Stadt Seeland, Germany.
authors.forename: Dijun
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Institute of Plant Genetics, Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Strzeszyńska 34, Poznań, Poland.
authors.forename: Hanna
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ćwiek
authors.affiliation: Applied Bioinformatics, Bioscience, Plant Sciences Group, Wageningen University and Research Centre (WUR), Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Aalt D J
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: van Dijk
authors.affiliation: Forschungszentrum Jülich, IBG-2 Plant Sciences, Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: Fabio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Fiorani
authors.affiliation: The European Molecular Biology Laboratory-The European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridgeshire CB10 1SD, UK.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kersey
authors.affiliation: Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), OT Gatersleben, Corrensstrasse 3, D-06466 Stadt Seeland, Germany.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Klukas
authors.affiliation: Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), OT Gatersleben, Corrensstrasse 3, D-06466 Stadt Seeland, Germany.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lange
authors.affiliation: Poznań University of Life Sciences, ul. Wojska Polskiego 28, Poznań, Poland.
authors.forename: Augustyn
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Markiewicz
authors.affiliation: Applied Bioinformatics, Bioscience, Plant Sciences Group, Wageningen University and Research Centre (WUR), Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jan Peter
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Nap
authors.affiliation: Keygene N.V., Agro Business Park 90, 6708 PW Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: van Oeveren
authors.affiliation: INRA-URGI, Route de Saint Cyr, Versaille, France.
authors.forename: Cyril
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pommier
authors.affiliation: Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), OT Gatersleben, Corrensstrasse 3, D-06466 Stadt Seeland, Germany.
authors.forename: Uwe
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Scholz
authors.affiliation: Keygene N.V., Agro Business Park 90, 6708 PW Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: van Schriek
authors.affiliation: Forschungszentrum Jülich, IBG-2 Plant Sciences, Jülich, Germany RWTH Aachen, Worringer Weg 3, Institute of Biology I, Aachen, Germany.
authors.forename: Björn
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Usadel
authors.affiliation: Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), OT Gatersleben, Corrensstrasse 3, D-06466 Stadt Seeland, Germany.
authors.forename: Stephan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Weise
mesh_terms: D018556:Crops, Agricultural / Q000235:genetics*; D018745:Genome, Plant; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods*; D010641:Phenotype; D013223:Statistics as Topic / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Data formatting; data interoperability; metadata content; minimum information recommendations; phenotyping; standardization.