Biodiversity & Ecology

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

Long Database Report Open Access

VegBank – a permanent, open-access archive for vegetation-plot data

Robert K. Peet*, Michael T. Lee, Michael D. Jennings & Don Faber-Langendoen

Article first published online: 24 September 2012

DOI: 10.7809/b-e.00080

*Corresponding author contact: peet@unc.edu

<< 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 233–241, Sep 12

PDF (954 kB)

Keywords: classification; concept-based taxonomy; ecology; Ecological Society of America; Federal Geographic Data Committee.

English

Abstract: Rapid progress is being made in North American vegetation science through recent developments within the U.S. National Vegetation Classification (USNVC). Central to these advances are sharing, archiving, and disseminating field plot data, the fundamental data required for describing and understanding vegetation communities. VegBank (GIVD ID NA-US-002) is the vegetation plot database of the Panel on Vegetation Classification of the Ecological Society of America. VegBank is a stand-alone, Internet-accessible, vegetation plot archive designed to allow users to easily submit, search, view, annotate, cite, and download diverse types of vegetation data. The archive also includes embedded databases that contain classifications of vegetation and individual organisms, designed and implemented to track the many-to-many relationship betweens names and plant or community concepts, as well as alternative party perspectives on accepted taxa. The VegBank data model is also implemented in VegBranch, a desktop tool for data management and for uploading to and downloading from VegBank.

Suggested citation:
Peet, R.K., Lee, M.T., Jennings, M.D., Faber-Langendoen, D. (2012): VegBank – a permanent, open-access archive for vegetation-plot data. – 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: 233–241. DOI: 10.7809/b-e.00080.