1. Trait‐based approaches are widespread throughout ecological research as they offer great potential to achieve a general understanding of a wide range of ecological and evolutionary mechanisms. Accordingly, a wealth of trait data is available for many organism groups, but this data is underexploited due to a lack of standardisation and heterogeneity in data formats and definitions.
2. We review current initiatives and structures developed for standardising trait data and discuss the importance of standardisation for trait data hosted in distributed open‐access repositories.
3. In order to facilitate the standardisation and harmonisation of distributed trait datasets by data providers and data users, we propose a standardised vocabulary that can be used for storing and sharing ecological trait data. We discuss potential incentives and challenges for the wide adoption of such a standard by data providers.
4. The use of a standard vocabulary allows for trait datasets from heterogeneous sources to be aggregated more easily into compilations and facilitates the creation of interfaces between software tools for trait‐data handling and analysis. By aiding decentralised trait‐data standardisation, our vocabulary may ease data integration and use of trait data for a broader ecological research community and enable global syntheses across a wide range of taxa and ecosystems.