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    Division BEE  >  Biodiversity & Ecology  >  Vol.4 >  Article 20

Biodiversity & Ecology

Long Database Report    Open Access 

VegMV – the vegetation database of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern


Florian Jansen*, Jürgen Dengler & Christian Berg

Article first published online: 24 September 2012

DOI: 10.7809/b-e.00070

*Corresponding author contact: jansen@uni-greifswald.de

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 149–160, Sep 12
  PDF  (1.1 MB)

Keywords: biodiversity informatics; Germany; plant community; phytosociology; relevé; vegetation plot.

English

Abstract: We review VegMV, the phytosociological database of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (NE Germany) with electronically stored vegetation relevés (GIVD ID EU-DE-001). The database was established in 1994 and is now hosted by the Institute of Botany and Landscape Ecology, University of Greifswald, Germany (http://www.botanik.uni-greifswald.de/VegMV). On 27 October 2011, the database contained 53,842 relevés, mostly from the federal state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, collected by approximately 320 authors between 1928 and 2010. Some 28% of the relevés were taken from published papers or monographs, 42% from theses and 30% from various unpublished reports and “field books”. A wide variety of habitats occurring in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern are represented, but territorial coverage by relevés is uneven, with lower coverage of less attractive and poorly accessible areas. The largest numbers of relevés are from managed grasslands ( Molinio-Arrhenatheretea ), arable land (Stellarietea mediae), and eutrophic reed communities (Phragmito-Magno-Caricetea). We quantify and discuss possible bias in the data, such as preferential selection of sampling sites (habitat and small-scale preferences), taxonomic inconsistencies, spatial agglomeration, and missing values for some data elements. We present a brief introduction to the consistent phytosociological vegetation classification developed using the VegMV data. Further applications of the data and the conditions for their use are reported.

Suggested citation:
Jansen, F., Dengler, J., Berg, C. (2012): VegMV – the vegetation database of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. – 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: 149–160. DOI: 10.7809/b-e.00070.