Large vegetation-plot databases have opened unprecedented opportunities for investigating vegetation patterns and processes across large spatial and temporal scales. However, such databases are typically created by combining pre-existing smaller databases or datasets that often used different standards and protocols, leading to data inconsistencies (e.g., different taxonomy and nomenclature) and issues (e.g., wrongly georeferenced plots) that must be addressed during the pre-processing of data for analyses. This pre-processing phase is usually time-consuming and may repeat workflows already developed by other researchers. To facilitate the pre-processing of large vegetation-plot databases and avoid duplication of effort, we have compiled a list of what we consider to be the 15 most common data inconsistencies and issues encountered during this stage. Alongside descriptions of their origins and potential impacts on data analysis, we provide solutions for addressing each inconsistency and issue. Furthermore, we present a standardized workflow – an ordered sequence of steps to identify and fix data inconsistencies and issues – that can be adapted to different types of analyses. Besides supporting researchers in the pre-processing stage, this standardized workflow aims to improve transparency and reproducibility in the analysis of large vegetation-plot databases.

Grassland ecosystems are facing rapid and ongoing change driven by intensified land-use and accelerated climate change, highlighting the urgent need to understand their potential adaptation and response to environmental change. We analyzed data from 52 980 vegetation plots spanning all major grassland habitats in Europe (including alpine, rocky, sandy, saline, dry, mesic and wet grasslands). We quantified competitive (C), stress-tolerant (S), and ruderal (R) strategies for 7858 plant species based on key functional traits and mapped the spatial patterns of C-, S- and R-strategies across European grasslands. Using random forest models, we evaluated the relative importance of environmental factors in shaping these patterns and explored potential changes in the distribution of C-, S- and R-strategies under future climate scenarios. We further investigated how these strategies and their environmental drivers vary across grassland habitats. Our results revealed a clear biogeographical gradient in the distribution of C-, S- and R-strategies from predominantly stress-tolerant strategies in Mediterranean grasslands to greater representation of competitive and ruderal strategies in temperate regions. Climate and soil factors emerged as major drivers shaping these patterns at the continental scale. Projected responses to future climate change varied among regions: grasslands in the Atlantic and Continental regions were projected to decrease in C-strategy and increase in both S- and R-strategy representation, whereas grasslands in Arctic and boreal regions exhibited contrasting trends. Mediterranean grasslands were projected to undergo a transition from mainly R-strategy toward S-strategy species predominance. Furthermore, the strategy patterns and their key drivers differed among grassland habitats, with patterns largely reflecting habitat-specific environmental constraints. This study demonstrates the utility of Grime's CSR framework for characterizing broad-scale patterns of plant adaptive strategies across diverse grassland habitats. It highlights region- and habitat-specific differences in potential responses to future climate change, with implications for targeted grassland management and restoration.

Abstract Despite widespread concern over global biodiversity loss, the balance between gains and losses within local plant communities remains contentious, largely due to a scarcity of integrative, long-term and large-scale analyses across different habitats and multiple facets of biodiversity. Here, we analyse 57,390 vegetation-plot time series of vascular plants across Europe to quantify the average and habitat-specific trends in taxonomic, functional, phylogenetic, and gamma diversity, alongside with changes in threatened Red List, non-native, and specialist versus generalist species. We find that, over the last 100 years, plant communities gained on average 0.7% in vegetation cover and 0.2% in species number per year, associated with gains in functional and phylogenetic diversity, non-native, Red List, and generalist species. Diversity changes are most pronounced in mire and wetland communities. Differences among habitat types and habitat-change trajectory (stable, successional, disturbed), together with the most recent observation year, explain 2.1%–36.6% of the variation in diversity trends. Habitat-specific gamma diversity showed no general trends and only increased in stable grasslands and successional sparsely vegetated habitats. By integrating habitat types and change trajectories, we reconcile some of the conflicting narratives on local biodiversity change in favour of a more nuanced understanding of the observed variation in local biodiversity change.

The Natura 2000 (N2K) network of protected areas is one of the main tools for area-based conservation in the European Union (EU), yet its role in preserving plant biodiversity requires better understanding. We examined data kept in the European Vegetation Archive from over 1.2 million vegetation plots and obtained over 14.2 million plant species occurrences. To test the N2K network's representativeness of plant species gamma diversity, we compared the number and percentage of native and conservation priority species in- and outside the N2K network throughout the EU and for individual countries, biogeographical regions, and combinations thereof. We then determined whether N2K sites hosted more species than sites outside the network with the species-area relationship. Overall, almost 90% of the native vascular plant species occurred at least once in the N2K network. Yet, significant variation exists across countries and biogeographical regions-from 0% of species in the Boreal region of Lithuania, to 98% in the Alpine region of Croatia-indicating that local N2K sites are not equally representative of the regional gamma diversity. Nonetheless, the N2K network contains more species than land outside the network when area is taken into account. The planned expansion of the N2K network, as mandated by the European Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, should prioritize areas with currently underrepresented elements of the EU vascular flora.

In recent decades, global change and local anthropogenic pressures have severely affected natural ecosystems and their biodiversity. Although disentangling the effects of these factors is difficult, they are reflected in changes in the functional composition of plant communities. We present a comprehensive, large-scale analysis of long-term changes in plant communities of various non-forest habitat types in the Czech Republic based on 1154 vegetation-plot time series from 53 resurvey studies comprising 3909 vegetation-plot records. We focused not only on taxonomic diversity but also on the functional characteristics of communities. Species richness of most habitat types increased over time, and taxonomic and functional community composition shifted significantly. Habitat specialists and threatened species became less represented in plant communities, indicating a decline in habitat quality. The spread of trees, shrubs, tall herbaceous plants, strong competitors, and nutrient-demanding species in all non-forest habitats, coupled with the decline of light-demanding species, suggests an effect of eutrophication and natural succession following the abandonment of traditional management. Moreover, we identified specific trends in certain habitats. In wetlands, springs, and mires, moisture-demanding species decreased, probably due to drainage, river regulations, and increasing drought resulting from climate change. Dry grasslands, ruderal, weed, sand, and shallow-soil vegetation became more mesic, and successional processes were most pronounced in these communities, suggesting a stronger effect of abandonment of traditional management and eutrophication. In alpine and subalpine vegetation, meadows and mesic pastures, and heathlands, insect-pollinated species declined, and the proportion of grasses increased. Overall, these functional changes provide deep insights into the underlying drivers and help conservationists take appropriate countermeasures.

Over the past 60 years, natural habitats have been affected by various anthropogenic pressures. However, little is known about how these pressures have influenced the species composition of whole floras across large areas. We used a large database of the Czech flora to assess broad-scale temporal trends in temperate European flora over the last 60 years. We extracted over 4.6 million occurrence records of 1912 species collected over the past six decades and analysed the changes in species occurrence frequency over time using dynamic occupancy models within a Bayesian framework that accounted for various biases in the data. Five main patterns of temporal change were revealed. The increasing species were supported by different environmental changes that peaked at different periods. Competitively strong, nutrient-demanding generalist species that successfully colonize new and highly disturbed habitats supported by eutrophication and anthropogenic disturbances strongly increased in 1961-1980. Shade-tolerant species of less disturbed habitats increased between 1981 and 2000, indicating an effect of habitat abandonment, and thermophilous species began to spread in the last 20 years, reflecting rising temperatures. Competitively strong species of less frequently disturbed habitats with higher moisture and nutrient requirements and low light requirements increased gradually over the last six decades. In contrast, specialized species of nutrient-poor habitats with low colonization and competitive ability, associated with more frequent but less severe disturbances, steadily decreased due to the ongoing decline of habitat quality after the cessation of traditional management, and many of them have been included in the national Red List.

Aims: We introduce ReSurveyEurope - a new data source of resurveyed vegetation plots in Europe, compiled by a collaborative network of vegetation scientists. We describe the scope of this initiative, provide an overview of currently available data, governance, data contribution rules, and accessibility. In addition, we outline further steps, including potential research questions. Results: ReSurveyEurope includes resurveyed vegetation plots from all habitats. Version 1.0 of ReSurveyEurope contains 283,135 observations (i.e., individual surveys of each plot) from 79,190 plots sampled in 449 independent resurvey projects. Of these, 62,139 (78%) are permanent plots, that is, marked in situ, or located with GPS, which allow for high spatial accuracy in resurvey. The remaining 17,051 (22%) plots are from studies in which plots from the initial survey could not be exactly relocated. Four data sets, which together account for 28,470 (36%) plots, provide only presence/absence information on plant species, while the remaining 50,720 (64%) plots contain abundance information (e.g., percentage cover or cover-abundance classes such as variants of the Braun-Blanquet scale). The oldest plots were sampled in 1911 in the Swiss Alps, while most plots were sampled between 1950 and 2020. Conclusions: ReSurveyEurope is a new resource to address a wide range of research questions on fine-scale changes in European vegetation. The initiative is devoted to an inclusive and transparent governance and data usage approach, based on slightly adapted rules of the well-established European Vegetation Archive (EVA). ReSurvey:Europe data are ready for use, and proposals for analyses of the data set can be submitted at any time to the coordinators. Still, further data contributions are highly welcome.

Urban areas exert a significant influence on plant species assemblages. The mosaic of different urban land uses is reflected in the distribution patterns of different plant groups. Here we present the results of the first systematic and detailed floristic survey of the city of Brno, Czech Republic. We studied the flora of Brno from 2011 to 2021, and recorded all spontaneously occurring species in grid cells of 1.3 x 1.5 km. Our dataset includes 1,492 taxa found in the city, classified by their origin, residence time, invasion status, index of ecological specialization, and threat status in the Czech flora. Of these, 902 are native, 205 archaeophytes and 339 neophytes. The remaining 46 species with unknown status are probably remnants of cultivation or newly introduced species. Of the total list of species, 255 species are classified as threatened or near threatened in the Czech Republic. We analysed the effect of seven land-use categories on the proportions of these plant groups and found significant differences in the distribution of individual plant groups within the city. The proportions of plant groups except for threatened species reflected the proportions of individual land-use categories in the grid cells, although the strength and direction of these responses differed among plant groups. Native plant species richness was high in grid cells where forests predominate and the level of urbanization is low. In contrast, the proportion of archaeophytes and neophytes was much lower in the grid cells with a high proportion of forests. While archaeophytes predominated in the lowlands with agricultural land use, neophytes were more common in the central built-up areas of the city. To document the current distribution of all taxa found we supplement this study with a series of maps.

This article describes FloraVeg.EU, a new online database with open-access information on European vegetation units (phytosociological syntaxa), vegetated habitats, and plant taxa. It consists of three modules. (1) The Vegetation module includes 149 phytosociological classes, 378 orders and 1305 alliances of an updated version of the EuroVegChecklist modified based on the decisions of the European Vegetation Classification Committee. Vegetation units dominated by vascular plants are characterized by country-based distribution maps and data on the dominant life forms, phenology, soil properties, relationships to vegetation regions, elevational vegetation belts and azonal habitats, successional status, and degree of naturalness. A list of diagnostic taxa is also provided for each class. (2) The Habitats module includes vascular-plant-dominated terrestrial, freshwater, and marine habitat types from the first to the third or fourth highest hierarchical levels of the EUNIS classification. Of these, 249 vegetated habitats are characterized by a brief description, a point-based distribution map, diagnostic, constant, and dominant taxa, and a list of the corresponding alliances. (3) The Species module provides information on 37 characteristics of European vascular plant species and some infrageneric or infraspecific taxa, including functional traits (habitus and growth type, leaf, flower, fruit and seed traits, and trophic mode), taxon origin (native vs alien), and ecological information (environmental relationships, Ellenberg-type indicator values, disturbance indicator values, and relationships to vegetation units and habitat types). Values for at least three variables are available for 36,404 species. Individual taxa, vegetation units, and habitats in these three modules are illustrated by more than 34,000 photographs. The Download section of FloraVeg.EU provides open-access data sets in a spreadsheet format that can be used for analyses. FloraVeg.EU is a new resource with easily accessible data that can be used for research in vegetation science, ecology, and biogeography, as well as for education and conservation applications.

The class Montio-Cardaminetea includes vegetation of springs with constant water flow. These habitats, which function as islands for highly specialized and sensitive biota, are endangered by ongoing landscape and climatic changes. Although a harmonized classification into vegetation units is necessary for effective habitat conservation, there is currently no synthetic classification of the class Montio-Cardaminetea. Here a large set of vegetation-plot records was obtained from national and private databases. The aim was to validate the EuroVegChecklist classification scheme, search for additional ecologically meaningful vegetation types and develop an automatic system for classifying new plots from Europe. We formally defined the cores of eight of the ten EuroVegChecklist alliances: Caricion remotae, Cratoneurion commutati, Lycopodo europaei-Cratoneurion commutati, Epilobio nutantis-Montion, KoenigioMicrojuncion, Mniobryo-Epilobion hornemanii, Philonotidion seriatae (Cardamino-Montion) and Swertio perennis-Anisothecion squarrosi, which were also reproduced by unsupervised classifications. Both unsupervised and semi-supervised classifications further suggested two alliances not previously recognized in the EuroVegChecklist: Anthelion julaceae (liverwort dominated subalpine to alpine springs in highly oceanic regions in Britain) and Cratoneuro filicini-Calthion laetae (mesotrophic herb-rich subalpine and alpine springs). The unsupervised classifications mainly reflected the base saturation gradient, distinguishing between calcareous and non-calcareous springs. Therefore, it is suggested the order Montio-Cardaminetalia, which is broadly delimited in the EuroVegChecklist, be divided into two separate orders and the following three orders should be distinguished within the class Montio-Cardaminetea: CardaminoChrysosplenietalia (non-calcareous forest springs; Caricion remotae), Cardamino-Cratoneuretalia (calcareous springs; Cratoneurion commutati, Lycopodo europaei-Cratoneurion commutati) and Montio-Cardaminetalia (non-calcareous non-forest springs; all other alliances).

Ecological theory predicts close relationships between macroclimate and functional traits. Yet, global climatic gradients correlate only weakly with the trait composition of local plant communities, suggesting that important factors have been ignored. Here, we investigate the consistency of climate-trait relationships for plant communities in European habitats. Assuming that local factors are better accounted for in more narrowly defined habitats, we assigned > 300,000 vegetation plots to hierarchically classified habitats and modelled the effects of climate on the community-weighted means of four key functional traits using generalized additive models. We found that the predictive power of climate increased from broadly to narrowly defined habitats for specific leaf area and root length, but not for plant height and seed mass. Although macroclimate generally predicted the distribution of all traits, its effects varied, with habitat-specificity increasing toward more narrowly defined habitats. We conclude that macroclimate is an important determinant of terrestrial plant communities, but future predictions of climatic effects must consider how habitats are defined.

Aims: Ellenberg-type indicator values are expert-based rankings of plant species according to their ecological optima on main environmental gradients. Here we extend the indicator-value system proposed by Heinz Ellenberg and co-authors for Central Europe by incorporating other systems of Ellenberg-type indicator values (i.e., those using scales compatible with Ellenberg values) developed for other European regions. Our aim is to create a harmonized data set of Ellenberg-type indicator values applicable at the European scale.Methods: We collected European data sets of indicator values for vascular plants and selected 13 data sets that used the nine-, ten- or twelve-degree scales defined by Ellenberg for light, temperature, moisture, reaction, nutrients and salinity. We compared these values with the original Ellenberg values and used those that showed consistent trends in regression slope and coefficient of determination. We calculated the average value for each combination of species and indicator values from these data sets. Based on species' co-occurrences in European vegetation plots, we also calculated new values for species that were not assigned an indicator value.Results: We provide a new data set of Ellenberg-type indicator values for 8908 European vascular plant species (8168 for light, 7400 for temperature, 8030 for moisture, 7282 for reaction, 7193 for nutrients, and 7507 for salinity), of which 398 species have been newly assigned to at least one indicator value.Conclusions: The newly introduced indicator values are compatible with the original Ellenberg values. They can be used for large-scale studies of the European flora and vegetation or for gap-filling in regional data sets. The European indicator values and the original and taxonomically harmonized regional data sets of Ellenberg-type indicator values are available in the Supporting Information and the Zenodo repository.

Questions The human-related spread of alien plants has serious environmental and socioeconomic impacts. Therefore, it is important to know which habitats are most threatened by invasion and why. We studied a wide range of European grasslands to assess: (a) which alien species are the most successful invaders in grasslands; (b) how invasion levels differ across European regions (countries or their parts) and biogeographical regions; and (c) which habitat types are the most invaded. Location Europe. Methods We selected 97,411 grassland vegetation plots from the European Vegetation Archive (EVA) and assigned a native or alien status to each of the 8,212 vascular plant species found in these plots. We considered only neophytes (alien species introduced after 1500 AD), which we further divided according to their origin. We compared the levels of invasion using relative neophyte richness in the species pool, relative neophyte richness and cover per plot, and percentages of invaded plots among regions and habitats. Results Only 536 species, representing 6.5% of all grassland vascular plant species, were classified as neophytes. These were mostly therophytes or hemicryptophytes with low habitat specificity. Most of them were present in very few plots, while only three species were recorded in more than 1% of all plots (Onobrychis viciifolia, Erigeron annuus and Erigeron canadensis). Although invasion levels were generally low, we found more invaded plots in the Boreal and Continental regions. When considering only non-European neophytes, the Pannonian region was the most invaded. Among different grassland habitats, sandy grasslands were most invaded, and alpine and oromediterranean grasslands least invaded. Conclusions In general, natural and semi-natural European grasslands have relatively low levels of neophyte invasions compared with human-made habitats or alluvial forests, as well as with grasslands on other continents. The most typical neophytes invading European grasslands are species with broad ecological niches.

Aims Biodiversity is traditionally studied mostly at the species level, but biogeographical and macroecological studies at higher taxonomic levels can provide valuable insights into the evolutionary processes at large spatial scales. Our aim was to assess the representation of vascular plant families within different vegetation formations across Europe. Location Europe. Methods We used a data set of 816,005 vegetation plots from the European Vegetation Archive (EVA). For each plot, we calculated the relative species richness of each plant family as the number of species belonging to that family divided by the total number of species. We mapped the relative species richness, averaged across all plots in 50 km × 50 km grid cells, for each family and broad habitat groups: forests, grasslands, scrub and wetlands. We also calculated the absolute species richness and the Shannon diversity index for each family. Results We produced 522 maps of mean relative species richness for a total of 152 vascular plant families occurring in forests, grasslands, scrub and wetlands. We found distinct spatial patterns for many combinations of families and habitat groups. The resulting series of 522 maps is freely available, both as images and GIS layers. Conclusions The distinct spatial patterns revealed in the maps suggest that the relative species richness of plant families at the community level reflects the evolutionary history of individual families. We believe that the maps and associated data can inspire further biogeographical and macroecological studies and strengthen the ongoing integration of phylogenetic, functional and taxonomic diversity concepts.

Aim To analyse the biogeographic patterns of Temperate Deciduous Forests (TDFs) in Western Eurasia based on different life-forms and forests layers and explore their relationships with the current climate, Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) climate and topography. Location Western Eurasia. Taxon Vascular plants. Methods We delimited nine regions encompassing the variability of TDFs in Western Eurasia and collected 1000 vegetation plots from each. We deconstructed the plant communities into three layers, tree, shrub and floor. We used (i) generalized linear mixed models (GLMM) to analyse the influence of current climate, historical climate and topography on species richness by accounting for regional effects and (ii) redundancy analysis (RDA) with variance partitioning to describe the variation in life forms along abiotic gradients. The three forest layers were analysed jointly and separately. Results The Balkans, Alps and Carpathians appeared to be the richest in plant species, whereas the British Isles and the Hyrcanian region were the poorest. Annual temperature range and annual mean temperature were the best predictors of species richness for the whole dataset and for the shrub layer. The tree layer richness was mainly explained by the annual temperature range and by elevation, whereas the forest floor richness was more related to the annual temperature range and the annual mean temperature differences between the LGM and current climate. The current climate was the main predictor of the composition of the whole community, the tree layer and the floor layer, while the shrub layer was also influenced by historical climate. Main conclusions Our overview of the diversity of temperate deciduous forests in Western Eurasia demonstrates different patterns and drivers across life-forms and forest layers. While the diversity of trees is mainly linked to current climatic conditions, the shrub layer is also driven by postglacial-glacial climatic stability, suggesting a different origin from forest trees.

EUNIS-ESy is an expert system for automatic classification of European vegetation plots to habitat types of the EUNIS Habitat Classification. The EUNIS classification and the principles of the expert system are described by Chytrý et al. (2020). The classification of a set of vegetation plots can be run using the JUICE program (Tichý 2002; https://www.sci.muni.cz/botany/juice/), TURBOVEG 3 program (Hennekens 2015) and an R script (Bruelheide et al. 2021). This dataset contains two parts: (1) the expert system and related files necessary for running it; (2) characterization of EUNIS habitats based on the results of the expert system classification. 1. Expert system and related files necessary to run it 1.1. EUNIS-ESy-2021-06-01.txt – a file containing the script for the classification of vegetation plots by EUNIS-ESy. This version contains tested definitions for the revised classification vegetated Marine (coastal saltmarshes), Coastal, Wetland, Grassland, Shrubland, Forest, Inland sparsely vegetated and Man-made habitats, and preliminary non-tested definitions of the older classification of Marine, Aquatic and Inland sparsely vegetated habitats. 1.2. Nomenclature-translation-from-Turboveg-2-databases.zip – an archive containing the scripts for automatic translation of taxon concepts and names used in individual European Turboveg 2 databases (Hennekens & Schaminée 2001; https://www.synbiosys.alterra.nl/turboveg/) to the nomenclature that can be used as an input for EUNIS-ESy. 1.3. EUNIS-ESy-User-Guide.pdf – a brief user guide to the classification of vegetation plots by EUNIS-ESy using the JUICE program. Please read this guide carefully before running the expert system to avoid misclassifications. 2. Characterization of the EUNIS habitats based on the results of the EUNIS-ESy classification 2.1. EUNIS-habitats-2021-06-01.xlsx – the current list of EUNIS habitats. 2.2. Habitat-factsheets-EUNIS-habitats-2021-06-01.pdf – a summary of data on EUNIS vegetated Marine (coastal saltmarshes), Coastal, Wetland, Grassland, Shrubland, Forest, Inland sparsely vegetated and Man-made habitats. These data were extracted from vegetation plots from the European Vegetation Archive (EVA; Chytrý et al. 2016; http://euroveg.org/eva-database) and other databases classified by EUNIS-ESy v2021-06-01. Each habitat is described in a factsheet that includes a brief habitat description, distribution map, corresponding alliances of EuroVegChecklist (Mucina et al. 2016; https://www.synbiosys.alterra.nl/evc/) and characteristic species combination divided into diagnostic, constant and dominant species. 2.3. Characteristic-species-combinations-EUNIS-habitats-2021-06-01.xlsx – a database of habitats' characteristic species combinations in a spreadsheet format. 2.4. Data-sources-EUNIS-classification-2021-06-01.pdf – a list of data sources used to produce the distribution maps and characteristic species combinations. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Differences from the previous version (2020-06-08) Vegetated Marine (coastal saltmarshes) and Inland sparsely vegetation habitats were added to the expert system. New vegetation-plot records added to the EVA database by 7 April 2021 were used to characterize habitat types. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Recommended citation of this version of the EUNIS-ESy expert system Chytrý et al. (2020), version 2021-06-01 Chytrý M., Tichý L., Hennekens S.M., Knollová I., Janssen J.A.M., Rodwell J.S., Peterka T., Marcenò C., Landucci F., Danihelka J., Hájek M., Dengler J., Novák P., Zukal D., Jiménez-Alfaro B., Mucina L., Abdulhak S., Aćić S., Agrillo E., Attorre F., Bergmeier E., Biurrun I., Boch S., Bölöni J., Bonari G., Braslavskaya T., Bruelheide H., Campos J.A., Čarni A., Casella L., Ćuk M., Ćušterevska R., De Bie E., Delbosc P., Demina O., Didukh Y., Dítě D., Dziuba T., Ewald J., Gavilán R.G., Gégout J.-C., Giusso del Galdo G.P., Golub V., Goncharova N., Goral F., Graf U., Indreica A., Isermann M., Jandt U., Jansen F., Jansen J., Jašková A., Jiroušek M., Kącki Z., Kalníková V., Kavgacı A., Khanina L., Korolyuk A.Yu., Kozhevnikova M., Kuzemko A., Küzmič F., Kuznetsov O.L., Laiviņš M., Lavrinenko I., Lavrinenko O., Lebedeva M., Lososová Z., Lysenko T., Maciejewski L., Mardari C., Marinšek A., Napreenko M.G., Onyshchenko V., Pérez-Haase A., Pielech R., Prokhorov V., Rašomavičius V., Rodríguez Rojo M.P., Rūsiņa S., Schrautzer J., Šibík J., Šilc U., Škvorc Ž., Smagin V.A., Stančić Z., Stanisci A., Tikhonova E., Tonteri T., Uogintas D., Valachovič M., Vassilev K., Vynokurov D., Willner W., Yamalov S., Evans D., Palitzsch Lund M., Spyropoulou R., Tryfon E. & Schaminée J.H.J. (2020) EUNIS Habitat Classification: expert system, characteristic species combinations and distribution maps of European habitats. Applied Vegetation Science, 23, 648–675. https://doi.org/10.1111/avsc.12519

Aim: Vegetation types of Mediterranean thermophilous pine forests dominated by Pinus brutia, Pinus halepensis, Pinus pinaster and Pinus pinea were studied in various areas. However, a comprehensive formal vegetation classification of these forests based on a detailed data analysis has never been developed. Our aim is to provide the first broad-scale classification of these pine forests based on a large data set of vegetation plots. Location: Southern Europe, North Africa, Levant, Anatolia, Crimea and the Caucasus. Methods: We prepared a data set of European and Mediterranean pine forest vegetation plots. We selected 7,277 plots dominated by the cold-sensitive Mediterranean pine species Pinus brutia, Pinus halepensis, Pinus pinaster and Pinus pinea. We classified these plots using TWINSPAN, interpreted the ecologically and biogeographically homogeneous TWINSPAN clusters as alliances, and developed an expert system for automatic vegetation classification at the class, order and alliance levels. Results: We described Pinetea halepensis as a new class for the Mediterranean lowland to submontane pine forests, included in the existing Pinetalia halepensis order, and distinguished 12 alliances of native thermophilous pine forests, including four newly described and three informal groups merging supposedly native stands and old-established plantations. The main gradients in species composition reflect elevational vegetation belts and the west-east, and partly north-south, biogeographical differences. Both temperature and precipitation seasonality co-vary with these gradients. Conclusions: We provide the first formal classification at the order and alliance levels for all the Mediterranean thermophilous pine forests based on vegetation-plot data. This classification includes traditional syntaxa, which have been critically revised, and a new class and four new alliances. We also outline a methodological workflow that might be useful for other vegetation classification syntheses. The expert system, which is jointly based on pine dominance and species composition, is a tool for applying this classification in research and nature conservation survey, monitoring and management.

This dataset contains the list of plant occurrences and geographical and environmental attributes of the vegetation-plots analyzed in the paper titled “Phylogenetic structure of European forest vegetation” by Padullés Cubino et al. (2021; Journal of Biogeography; DOI: 10.1111/jbi.14046). The dataset contains 3 tables: “Table_taxa.csv”: It includes the list of angiosperm plant taxa in selected vegetation plots. “Table_sites.csv”: It includes data on the environmental variables of plots, their classification into different forest types, their location in 1o × 1o grid cells, and the reference to the original datasets archived in the European Vegetation Archive (EVA; http://euroveg.org/eva-database-participating-databases). “Metadata.csv”: It includes a description of the fields found in the two previous tables.

(a) To determine the contribution of current macro‐environmental factors in explaining the phylogenetic structure of European forest vegetation, (b) to map and describe spatial patterns in their phylogenetic structure and (c) to examine which lineages are the most important contributors to phylogenetic clustering and whether their contribution varies across forest types and regions.