Ricerc@Sapienza

Aim: The EUNIS Habitat Classification is a widely used reference framework for European habitat types (habitats), but it lacks formal definitions of individual habitats that would enable their unequivocal identification. Our goal was to develop a tool for assigning vegetation-plot records to the habitats of the EUNIS system, use it to classify a European vegetation-plot database, and compile statistically-derived characteristic species combinations and distribution maps for these habitats. Location: Europe.

In recent years, interest in availability of georeferenced vegetation plots has stimulated or reinvigorated national initiatives to compile these data. In Italy, eleven vegetation databases are currently registered in the Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases (GIVD). In this paper we describe the Vegetation Plot Database - Sapienza University of Rome (VPD-Sapienza; GIVD code EU-IT-011), which started in 2012 and rapidly became one of the most prominent ones with a total of 21,917 georeferenced vegetation plots spanning across the country.