FRED 4.0 may be cited using the following Digital Object Identifier (DOI):
Nikitin T, McCormack ML, Iversen CM, Baer JK, Powell AS, Borden KA, Chen W, Collins C, Cordeiro AL, Cusack DF, Dallstream C, Fan Y, Fanin N, Freschet GT, Hewitt RE, Hogan JA, Hong XS, Kou L, Lachaise T, Laughlin DC, Lavely E, Liese R, Lin D, Meier CL, Meier IC, Montagnoli A, Picon-Cochard C, Pierick K, Roumet C, See CR, Soper F, Terzaghi M, Tumber-Dávila SJ, Valverde-Barrantes OJ, Wang C, Weemstra M, Wright SJ, Wurzburger N, Zadworny M. 2026. Fine-Root Ecology Database (FRED): A Global Collection of Root Trait Data with Coincident Site, Vegetation, Edaphic, and Climatic Data, Version 4. ESS-DIVE repository. Dataset. doi:10.15485/2587359 accessed via https://data.ess-dive.lbl.gov/datasets/doi:10.15485/2587359.
Note: The author list for the data set includes FRED team members as well as belowground ecologists who contributed unpublished data to current or previous versions of FRED. Thank you to those scientists for advancing our understanding of belowground ecology with previously unpublished observations!
We encourage data users to cite original data sources where possible.