I'd rephase this. The MA runs on tabular data in a specific format. One way to easily get data in that format is to query BETYdb, but you can also generate that format manually if you have other trait data. Indeed, a great new Issue for first time PEcAn developers would be create a helper function(s) that reformats trait data from common trait databases (e.g. TRY) into the tabular format this module is expecting. Given that no one is actively updating BETY, this approach is probably going to be the de facto norm for most users, and in the future there should be an update to this demo once we have functions that enable this

Originally posted by @mdietze in #3707 (comment)

Create helper functions to reformat trait data from common external databases (like TRY) into the tabular format expected by the meta-analysis module. This would allow users to easily use data sources other than BETYdb.