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An ongoing project

Source: .github/CONTRIBUTING.md

The traits4models R package aims at becoming the result of collaborative work between process-based modellers interested in compiling plant trait data for model parameter estimation. Therefore, we are open to further expanding the set of people contributing to the project.

Contributing to traits4models

Contributions to the development of traits4models can be done in different aspects:

  1. Harmonized trait definition: The data set HarmonizedTraitDefinition sets the nomenclature, definition and units for plant traits in the package. If you want to use the package, but the current trait definition does not include a given trait you need, you could contribute to the package by suggesting new definitions.
  2. Model parameter building: At present, traits4models provides functions to populate species parameter tables for models in medfate package. If you would like to use traits4models for parameter estimation of another process-based model, you could develop your own functions and contribute with them to the package.
  3. Sharing trait/allometry sources: Discovering and harmonizing trait data bases or allometry databases is a tedious task. Sharing sources and harmonized data sets among users of traits4models can be beneficial to many people.

Reporting bugs and suggesting enchancements

If you want to report a bug or suggest an enhancement, it’s a good idea to file an issue to the traits4models repository at GitHub. If you’ve found a bug, please file an issue that illustrates the bug with a minimal reprex.

Code contributions

Before making contributions to the package R code, make sure someone from the traits4models team agrees that the change you suggest is needed.

  • Fork the package and clone onto your computer. If you haven’t done this before, we recommend using usethis::create_from_github("emf-creaf/traits4models", fork = TRUE).

  • Install all development dependences with devtools::install_dev_deps(), and then make sure the package passes R CMD check by running devtools::check(). If R CMD check doesn’t pass cleanly, it’s a good idea to ask for help before continuing.

  • Create a Git branch for your pull request (PR). We recommend using usethis::pr_init("brief-description-of-change").

  • Make your changes, commit to git, and then create a PR by running usethis::pr_push(), and following the prompts in your browser. The title of your PR should briefly describe the change. The body of your PR should contain Fixes #issue-number.

  • For user-facing changes, add a bullet to the top of NEWS.md (i.e. just below the first header). Follow the style described in https://style.tidyverse.org/news.html.