Biodiversity & Ecology

English

Abstract: The Slovak Vegetation Database (or Central Database of Phytosociological Samples – CDF; EU-SK-001) was established in 1995 at the Institute of Botany, Slovak Academy of Sciences. The aim was to assemble all available phytosociological relevés from the territory of Slovakia and adjacent areas with the objective of producing a vegetation overview of all vegetation types and plant communities of Slovakia. The database provides information not only about the locality, floristic composition and variability of individual vegetation types but also on several environmental variables such as inclination, aspect, geology or soil type, characteristics for individual relevés. The Slovak vegetation database is providing the basis for national and supra-national classification overviews and other scientific studies. It can be linked to any international database, and supports not only the exchange of data, but mainly the possibility of bi- or multilateral projects, vegetation overviews of supra-regional areas (e.g. Carpathians) and supra-regional analyses of vegetation data that will enable a better insight into the functioning and distribution of plant communities, as well as evaluating local and global changes. The current structure of the database used as a basis of Slovak Vegetation Database reflects the experiences and suggestions of the users after years of using the programme TURBOVEG. Very important is also the non-commercial use of the database not only by scientists (botanists, zoologists, ecologists etc.), but also by nature conservation institutions, since it contains high-quality floristic records of both vascular and non-vascular plants with exact localisation and basic environmental characteristics.