Measures of interoperability of phenotypic data: minimum information requirements and formatting

PlantMethFig1

If you ever tried to compare the results from two different experiments, you probably realized that small variations in the environment have big impact on how the plants grow. There is a lot to be learned from how the variation in the environment affects plant phenotypes, but currently the description of experimental setup varies between studies. Cwiek-Kupczynska et al. propose Minimum Information About a Plant Phenotyping Experiment (MIAPPE) aiming to unify experimental setup details provided alongside the experiment results. Application of MIAPPE format will not only ensure FAIR data (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reproducible), but will allow us to learn more about genotype-environment interactions by comparing the phenotypic data on another, bigger scale.  (Summary by Magdalena Julkowska) Plant Methods 10.1186/s13007-016-0144-4