Dryad is an international repository for the data that underpins peer-reviewed articles in the basic and applied biosciences. Dryad is governed by a consortium of journals that collaboratively promote data archiving and ensure the sustainability of the repository.

Having access to underpinning data means scientists can:

• validate published findings
• explore new analysis methodologies
• repurpose data for research questions unanticipated by the original authors
• perform synthetic studies.

At the end of November this year, Dryad contained more than 1,000 data packages and more than 2,600 data files. The data packages and files were associated with articles in almost 100 journals.

Dryad has a number of partner repositories. These have agreed to exchange data with Dryad and help develop co-ordinated mechanisms for data submission and search.

• Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity
• NCBI GenBank
• TreeBASE
• DataONE