Biodiversity & Ecology

Journal of the Division Biodiversity, Evolution and Ecology of Plants , Institute for Plant Science and Microbiology, University of Hamburg.

Editorial Open Access

Facilitating access to vegetation data – Introduction to the Special Volume

Jürgen Dengler*, Jens Oldeland, Florian Jansen, Milan Chytrý, Jörg Ewald, Manfred Finckh, Falko Glöckler, Gabriela Lopez-Gonzalez, Robert K. Peet & Joop H.J. Schaminée

Article first published online: 24 September 2012

DOI: 10.7809/b-e.00055

*Corresponding author contact: juergen.dengler@uni-hamburg.de

<< Volume 4

Biodiversity & Ecology (Biodivers. Ecol.)

Special Volume: Vegetation databases for the 21st century,
edited by Jürgen Dengler, Jens Oldeland, Florian Jansen, Milan Chytrý, Jörg Ewald, Manfred Finckh, Falko Glöckler, Gabriela Lopez-Gonzalez, Robert K. Peet & Joop H.J. Schaminée

Volume 4, pages 9–13, Sep 12

PDF (568 kB)

Keywords: biodiversity informatics; conference report; database report; ecoinformatics; editorial; Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases (GIVD); metadata; vegetation plot.

English

Abstract: This editorial introduces the Special Volume “Vegetation databases for the 21st century”, which is an outcome of the 9th Meeting on Vegetation Databases, held 24–26 February 2010 in Hamburg. We briefly report on the meeting with its presentations and workshops. Then we highlight the launch of the Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases (GIVD), an online metadatabase initiated during the conference and which currently lists 183 databases worldwide. Further, we report on plans for an electronic reference list of all European plant taxa (EuroSL) and the emerging European Vegetation Archive (EVA), which will join existing national and regional databases. Besides five regular articles, this Special Volume contains a series of Database Reports that present standardised Fact Sheets for the majority of GIVD-registered databases. The publication of the Database Reports will make these databases more visible, allowing their regular citation, and thus presenting an incentive for collaborative data use.

Suggested citation:
Dengler, J., Oldeland, J., Jansen, F., Chytrý, M., Ewald. J., Finckh, M., Glöckler, F., Lopez-Gonzalez, G., Peet, R.K., Schaminée, J.H.J. (2012): Facilitating access to vegetation data – Introduction to the Special Volume . – In: Dengler, J., Oldeland, J., Jansen, F., Chytrý, M., Ewald, J., Finckh, M., Glöckler, F., Lopez-Gonzalez, G., Peet, R.K., Schaminée, J.H.J. [Eds.]: Vegetation databases for the 21st century. – Biodiversity & Ecology 4: 9–13. DOI: 10.7809/b-e.00055.