Toward a knowledge infrastructure for traits-based ecological risk assessment.

The trait approach has already indicated significant potential as a tool in understanding natural variation among species in sensitivity to contaminants in the process of ecological risk assessment. However, to realize its full potential, a defined nomenclature for traits is urgently required, and significant effort is required to populate databases of species-trait relationships. Recently, there have been significant advances in the area of information management and discovery in the area of the semantic web.