BactoTraits: a trait database for exploring functional diversity of bacterial communities

There is still a need for a better understanding of how abiotic/biotic factors affect the functional structure and composition of biological assemblages, given that living organisms are in constant interaction with their environment and with each other. Here, we present a comprehensive dataset of 31 functional traits of bacteria using information from BacDive, a bacterial diversity meta-database, as well as from the rrnDB and genomesizeR datasets. This updated version of the BactoTraits dataset, in addition to now offering more traits for more strains (97,721 strains with at least one trait described), makes R scripts available to the scientific community. These traits include physiological characteristics, metabolic processes, genome properties and biotope preferences. They could be inferred to the whole bacterial community thanks to taxonomic affiliation obtained from traditional high throughput 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing methods. This taxonomic affiliation is based on the regularly updated SILVA database and thus allows to study combinations of weighted mean trait profiles of bacterial communities at different taxonomic levels. BactoTraits can be used, for example, to improve predictions of ecological responses to natural/anthropogenic pressures and to support biomonitoring, management and conservation strategies. The R scripts, as well as the dataset encoded in BactoTraits, are available at: https://doi.org/10.24396/ORDAR-182 .