Knowledge representation and data sharing to unlock crop variation for nutritional food security

Abstract

AbstractMeeting the challenge of food and nutritional security requires ongoing innovation, particularly in managing dietary nutritional information for pre‐breeding analysis, selection, and cultivation of specific food crops and cultivars. At present, the ability to compare the relative nutritional value of crops is limited, with data management systems for most crops often inconsistent and poorly integrated. Here, we review generic efforts to standardize the description and management of crop trait data and discuss several issues currently constraining their exchange and comparison, with a focus on knowledge representation related to dietary nutrition. These issues include lack of consistency within or between crop specific databases, as well as limited data standardization and interoperability. At present, the use of common descriptors or controlled vocabularies between crops is fragmentary, with only partial implementation or uptake of formal ontologies, particularly for dietary nutritional composition. Although development of the existing Crop Ontology (CO) system has improved data sharing and reuse, it represents only a limited set of trait classes and crops. We identify the need for more robust and generic ontologies, particularly those that may address crop contributions to human dietary nutrition. We propose development of a Crop Dietary Nutrition Ontology (CDNO) as a robust structured controlled vocabulary for dietary nutritional composition and function, and provide examples of specific use cases and different end users who would benefit from using CDNO terms in their database searches. This development is likely to transform the way in which crops may be compared in terms of optimal dietary nutritional values.