%K biodiversity, collaboration, conservation, crossâ€ecosystem, database, deep sea, functional trait, globalâ€scale, hydrothermal vent, sFDvent %A ASA Chapman %A SE Beaulieu %A A Colaço %A AV Gebruk %A A Hilario %A TC Kihara %A E Ramirezâ€Llodra %A J Sarrazin %A V Tunnicliffe %A DJ Amon %A MC Baker %A RE Boschenâ€Rose %A C Chen %A IJ Cooper %A JT Copley %A L Corbari %A EE Cordes %A D Cuvelier %A S Duperron %A C Du Preez %A S Gollner %A T Horton %A S Hourdez %A EM Krylova %A K Linse %A PA LokaBharathi %A L Marsh %A M Matabos %A SW Mills %A LS Mullineaux %A HT Rapp %A WDK Reid %A E Rybakova (Goroslavskaya) %A TR A. Thomas %A SJ Southgate %A S Stöhr %A PJ Turner %A HK Watanabe %A M Yasuhara %A AE Bates %V 28 %X Traits are increasingly being used to quantify global biodiversity patterns, with trait databases growing in size and number, across diverse taxa. Despite growing interest in a traitâ€based approach to the biodiversity of the deep sea, where the impacts of human activities (including seabed mining) accelerate, there is no single repository for species traits for deepâ€sea chemosynthesisâ€based ecosystems, including hydrothermal vents. Using an international, collaborative approach, we have compiled the first globalâ€scale trait database for deepâ€sea hydrothermalâ€vent fauna – sFDvent (sDivâ€funded trait database for the Functional Diversity of vents). We formed a funded working group to select traits appropriate to: (a) capture the performance of vent species and their influence on ecosystem processes, and (b) compare traitâ€based diversity in different ecosystems. Forty contributors, representing expertise across most known hydrothermalâ€vent systems and taxa, scored species traits using online collaborative tools and shared workspaces. Here, we characterise the sFDvent database, describe our approach, and evaluate its scope. Finally, we compare the sFDvent database to similar databases from shallowâ€marine and terrestrial ecosystems to highlight how the sFDvent database can inform crossâ€ecosystem comparisons. We also make the sFDvent database publicly available online by assigning a persistent, unique doi. %J Global Ecology and Biogeography %N 11 %L discovery10079917 %I Wiley %D 2019 %O © 2019 The Authors Global Ecology and Biogeography Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). %T sFDvent: A global trait database for deepâ€sea hydrothermalâ€vent fauna %P 1538-1551