GrassPlot - a database of multi-scale plant diversity in Palaearctic grasslands

GrassPlot is a collaborative vegetation-plot database organised by the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group (EDGG) and listed in the Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases (GIVD ID EU-00-003). GrassPlot collects plot records (releves) from grasslands and other open habitats of the Palaearctic biogeographic realm. It focuses on precisely delimited plots of eight standard grain sizes (0.0001; 0.001;... 1,000 m(2)) and on nested-plot series with at least four different grain sizes. The usage of GrassPlot is regulated through Bylaws that intend to balance the interests of data contributors and data users. The current version (v. 1.00) contains data for approximately 170,000 plots of different sizes and 2,800 nested-plot series. The key components are richness data and metadata. However, most included datasets also encompass compositional data. About 14,000 plots have near-complete records of terricolous bryophytes and lichens in addition to vascular plants. At present, GrassPlot contains data from 36 countries throughout the Palaearctic, spread across elevational gradients and major grassland types. GrassPlot with its multi-scale and multi-taxon focus complements the larger international vegetationplot databases, such as the European Vegetation Archive (EVA) and the global database " sPlot". Its main aim is to facilitate studies on the scale-and taxon-dependency of biodiversity patterns and drivers along macroecological gradients. GrassPlot is a dynamic database and will expand through new data collection coordinated by the elected Governing Board. We invite researchers with suitable data to join GrassPlot. Researchers with project ideas addressable with GrassPlot data are welcome to submit proposals to the Governing Board

Utricularia (Lentibulariaceae) of Iran

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Die Trockenrasenvegetation Zentral-Podoliens (Ukraine) : eine vorläufige Übersicht zu Syntaxonomie, Ökologie und Biodiversität

We present the data of the 2nd research expedition of the European Dry Grassland Group (EDGG), which was conducted in 2010 in Central Podolia, Ukraine. The aim was to collect plot data to compare Ukrainian dry grasslands with those of other parts of Europe in terms of syntaxonomy and biodiversity. We sampled 21 nested-plot series (0.0001–100 m2) and 184 normal plots (10 m2) covering the full variety of dry grassland types occurring in the study region. For all plots, we recorded species composi-tion of terrestrial vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens, while for the 226 10-m2 plots we estimated and measured percentage cover of all species, structural, topographic, soil and landuse parameters. The 10-m² plots were used for phytosociological classification based on iteratively refined TWINSPAN classification as well as for DCA ordination. Differences between the derived vegetation types with respect to environmental conditions and species richness were assessed with ANOVAs. We assigned our plots to nine association-level units but refrained from placing them into formal associations with two exceptions. In the study area, dry grasslands of the Festuco-Brometea were far more common than those of the Koelerio-Corynephoretea. Among the Festuco-Brometea, xeric Festucetalia valesiacae grasslands were more frequent and represented by the Festucion valesiacae (2 associations, including the Allio taurici-Dichanthietum ischaemi ass. nova) and the Stipion lessingianae (1) compared to the Brachypodietalia pinnati with the Agrostio vinealis-Avenulion schellianae (3). The Koelerio-Corynephoretea were represented by three associations, each from a different order and alliance: basiphilous outcrops (Alysso alyssoidis-Sedetalia: Alysso alyssoidis-Sedion?), acidophilous outcrops (Sedo-Scleranthetalia: Veronico dillenii-Sedion albi?) and mesoxeric sandy grasslands (Trifolio arvensis-Festucetalia ovinae: Agrostion vinealis). We discuss the issue of the mesoxeric order Galietalia veri placed within the Molinio-Arrhenatheretea by Ukrainian authors and conclude that the content of that order would probably be better placed in the mesoxeric orders of the Koelerio-Corynephoretea and Festuco-Brometea. Other syntaxonomic questions could not be solved with our geographically limited dataset and await a supraregional analysis, e.g. whether the Ukrainian outcrop communities should be assigned to the same alliances as known from Central Europe or rather represent new vicariant units. The analysis of the biodiversity patterns showed that at a grain size of 10 m2, Podolian Koelerio-Corynephoretea communities were overall richer than Festuco-Brometea communities (46.4 vs. 40.6 species). This difference was due to the Koelerio-Corynephoretea containing twice as many bryophytes and nine times more lichens, while vascular plant species richness did not differ significantly between classes. The orders within the classes showed no real differences in species richness. The richness patterns observed in Podolia were almost the opposite of those usually found in dry grasslands, where Brachypodietalia pinnati are richer than Festucetalia valesiacae, and these richer than stands of the Koelerio-Corynpehoretea – and we do not have a good explanation for these idiosyncrasies. In conclusion, Podolian dry grasslands behave quite unexpectedly regarding biodiversity, and their syntaxonomy is still poorly understood. These knowledge gaps can only be addressed with supranational analyses based on comprehensive datasets.Halbnatürliche Grasländer gehören auf der Skalenebene unter 100 m2 weltweit zu den artenreichsten bekannten Vegetationstypen (WILSON et al. 2012). Hierzu gehören insbesondere einige europäische Halbtrockenrasen, die alle eine enge Beziehung zur extensiven landwirtschaftlichen Nutzung aufweisen und damit anthropogenen Ursprungs sind. Es gibt dagegen wenig vergleichbare Daten zu den halbnatürlichen und natürlichen Graslandgesellschaften der europäischen Steppenregionen, etwa in der Ukraine. Die ukrainische Vegetationskunde stand lange in der Tradition der russischen Schule mit ihrem dominanzbasiertem Klassifikationssysem (ALEXANDROVA 1973). Seit etwa zwei Jahrzehnten werden aber zunehmend pflanzensoziologische Klassifikationen veröffentlicht. Ein transnationaler Datenvergleich mit Vegetationsaufnahmen aus anderern europäischen Ländern war bisher schwierig und soll daher mit dieser Studie unterstützt werden, um eine einheitliche Klassifikation der europäischen Trockenrasen zu ermöglichen. Die European Dry Grassland Group (EDDG) hat sich zum Ziel gesetzt, nach einer standardisierten Erfassungsmethode (DENGLER 2009) in bisher wenig untersuchten Gebieten Europas vergleichbares Datenmaterial zur Trockenrasenvegetation zu erheben und in eine konsistente supranationale Klassifikation einzubringen. Ziele der zweiten Forschungsexpedition der EDGG im Jahre 2010 nach Zentral-Podolien waren daher (1) die Abgrenzung der im Untersuchungsge-biet vorkommenden Trockenrasentypen und Ermittlung ihrer Kennarten mit statistischen Methoden; (2) die Einordnung dieser Einheiten in das europäische syntaxonomische System; (3) ein Grundverständnis der ökologischen Faktoren, welche zur Differenzierung dieser Einheiten führen; und (4) die Dokumentation der Diversitätsmuster von Gefäßpflanzen, Moosen und Flechten auf verschiedenen räumlichen Skalenebenen

Diurnal temperature range as a key predictor of plants’ elevation ranges globally

Abstract A prominent hypothesis in ecology is that larger species ranges are found in more variable climates because species develop broader environmental tolerances, predicting a positive range size-temperature variability relationship. However, this overlooks the extreme temperatures that variable climates impose on species, with upper or lower thermal limits more likely to be exceeded. Accordingly, we propose the ‘temperature range squeeze’ hypothesis, predicting a negative range size-temperature variability relationship. We test these contrasting predictions by relating 88,000 elevation range sizes of vascular plants in 44 mountains to short- and long-term temperature variation. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find that species’ range size is negatively correlated with diurnal temperature range. Accurate predictions of short-term temperature variation will become increasingly important for extinction risk assessment in the future

Paper Mapping Asia plants: Current status on floristic information in Southwest Asia

Mapping Asia Plants (MAP) is a comprehensive project that aims to build a detailed infrastructure for integrating Asian plant distribution data a global-scale array of knowledge for plant biodiversity conservation. Here, we provide a brief historical review of botanical research in Southwest Asia an understudied botanical region with high conservation priority. Nineteen countries were included in this study (from west to east): Turkey, Cyprus, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Georgia, Yemen, Armenia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Oman. We reviewed 132 resources comprising 125 Floras and Checklists, of which we describe in some detail at least one of the most important Floras or Checklists for each country. Complete and published national Floras exist for 13 countries; three countries (Jordan, Israel and Bahrain) do not have a Flora but have annotated Checklists, and national Floras are at different stages of completion for Iran, Iraq and Georgia. Where present, online resources are also given for references. We found major gaps in species concepts and taxonomic classification systems, and that many up-to-date Flora revisions remained unresolved, i.e. taxon ranks and species concepts varied among different countries, different systems were adopted or followed in the taxonomic treatments in the Floras and Checklists, and some of the current Floras are out of date. Floras are the first necessary step for many fields, including evolutionary biology, ecology, biogeography, and systematics, as well as environmental research and conservation of biodiversity at national and international levels. Here, we provide the progress updates on the main published floristic works of Southwest Asia, which continue to serve as references for the Flora of Southwest Asia, and will be the foundation of the MAP project. (C) 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V

sPlotOpen - An environmentally balanced, open-access, global dataset of vegetation plots

Motivation Assessing biodiversity status and trends in plant communities is critical for understanding, quantifying and predicting the effects of global change on ecosystems. Vegetation plots record the occurrence or abundance of all plant species co-occurring within delimited local areas. This allows species absences to be inferred, information seldom provided by existing global plant datasets. Although many vegetation plots have been recorded, most are not available to the global research community. A recent initiative, called 'sPlot', compiled the first global vegetation plot database, and continues to grow and curate it. The sPlot database, however, is extremely unbalanced spatially and environmentally, and is not open-access. Here, we address both these issues by (a) resampling the vegetation plots using several environmental variables as sampling strata and (b) securing permission from data holders of 105 local-to-regional datasets to openly release data. We thus present sPlotOpen, the largest open-access dataset of vegetation plots ever released. sPlotOpen can be used to explore global diversity at the plant community level, as ground truth data in remote sensing applications, or as a baseline for biodiversity monitoring. Main types of variable contained Vegetation plots (n = 95,104) recording cover or abundance of naturally co-occurring vascular plant species within delimited areas. sPlotOpen contains three partially overlapping resampled datasets (c. 50,000 plots each), to be used as replicates in global analyses. Besides geographical location, date, plot size, biome, elevation, slope, aspect, vegetation type, naturalness, coverage of various vegetation layers, and source dataset, plot-level data also include community-weighted means and variances of 18 plant functional traits from the TRY Plant Trait Database. Spatial location and grain Global, 0.01-40,000 m(2). Time period and grain 1888-2015, recording dates. Major taxa and level of measurement 42,677 vascular plant taxa, plot-level records. Software format Three main matrices (.csv), relationally linked

sPlotOpen:an environmentally balanced, open-access, global dataset of vegetation plots

Abstract Motivation: Assessing biodiversity status and trends in plant communities is critical for understanding, quantifying and predicting the effects of global change on ecosystems. Vegetation plots record the occurrence or abundance of all plant species co-occurring within delimited local areas. This allows species absences to be inferred, information seldom provided by existing global plant datasets. Although many vegetation plots have been recorded, most are not available to the global research community. A recent initiative, called ‘sPlot’, compiled the first global vegetation plot database, and continues to grow and curate it. The sPlot database, however, is extremely unbalanced spatially and environmentally, and is not open-access. Here, we address both these issues by (a) resampling the vegetation plots using several environmental variables as sampling strata and (b) securing permission from data holders of 105 local-to-regional datasets to openly release data. We thus present sPlotOpen, the largest open-access dataset of vegetation plots ever released. sPlotOpen can be used to explore global diversity at the plant community level, as ground truth data in remote sensing applications, or as a baseline for biodiversity monitoring. Main types of variable contained: Vegetation plots (n = 95,104) recording cover or abundance of naturally co-occurring vascular plant species within delimited areas. sPlotOpen contains three partially overlapping resampled datasets (c. 50,000 plots each), to be used as replicates in global analyses. Besides geographical location, date, plot size, biome, elevation, slope, aspect, vegetation type, naturalness, coverage of various vegetation layers, and source dataset, plot-level data also include community-weighted means and variances of 18 plant functional traits from the TRY Plant Trait Database. Spatial location and grain: Global, 0.01–40,000 m². Time period and grain: 1888–2015, recording dates. Major taxa and level of measurement: 42,677 vascular plant taxa, plot-level records. Software format: Three main matrices (.csv), relationally linked