Annual reports
2024 Annual report
This report summarizes the activities of the European Vegetation Survey (EVS) Working Group from June 2023 to June 2024.
(1) EVS Conference The 32nd EVS conference will take place in Funchal, Madeira, Portugal, on 16–20 September 2024, thanks to an invitation by Jorge Capelo. It has been agreed between the EVS Steering Committee, the IAVS Governing Board and the Local Organizing Committee to hold this conference as a joint event with the 66th Annual Symposium of the IAVS.
(2) European Vegetation Archive (EVA) The European Vegetation Archive has been managed by the EVA Coordinating Board, which included Idoia Biurrun (ES), Milan Chytrý (CZ), Stephan Hennekens (NL), Florian Jansen (DE), Borja Jiménez-Alfaro (ES), Ilona Knollová (CZ) and Anna Kuzemko (UA). In March 2024, EVA comprised 108 databases with 2,077,540 vegetation plots. Of these plots, 79% were accessible under the semi-restricted regime, 17% under the restricted regime, and 3% were open access. In total, EVA data were provided to 200 research projects (including 22 new projects in the last year; https://euroveg.org/…ase/projects). Data from EVA have been used in 12 new journal articles published in the last year and 81 articles published since the database was launched in 2014. An updated list of all publications can be found at https://euroveg.org/…publications. Further details are summarized in the EVA Annual Report at https://euroveg.org/…ORT_2024.pdf.
(3) ReSurveyEurope Intensive efforts were devoted to the further development of the ReSurveyEurope database, which was coordinated by the elected members of the EVA Coordinating Board and the ReSurveyEurope initiators Franz Essl (AT), Helge Bruelheide (DE), and Stefan Dullinger (AT). By March 2024, this database contained 481 independent datasets with 85,000 plots and 434,005 plot observations (repeated records from the same plots). A report article describing the ReSurveyEurope database was published: Knollová I., Chytrý, M., Bruelheide H., Dullinger S., Jandt U., Bernhardt-Römermann M. … Essl F. (2024) ReSurveyEurope: A database of resurveyed vegetation plots in Europe. Journal of Vegetation Science 35: e13235. https://doi.org/…11/jvs.13235. Marta Gaia Sperandii (Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia) worked on an analysis of changes in European non-forest vegetation based on ReSurveyEurope data. Ute Jandt (University of Halle, Germany) and a team of international collaborators, mainly from EVS, were awarded the Biodiversa+ project MOTIVATE, which aims to further expand, improve and analyse the ReSurveyEurope database in collaboration with European vegetation scientists.
(4) FloraVeg.EU The FloraVeg.EU database (https://floraveg.eu/) was further extended and updated. Structural, ecological and biogeographical attributes of vegetation alliances were thoroughly revised, updated in FloraVeg.EU and published with a detailed description in a data article: Preislerová Z., Marcenò C., Loidi J., Bonari G., Borovyk D., Gavilán R.G. … Chytrý M. (2024) Structural, ecological and biogeographical attributes of European vegetation alliances. Applied Vegetation Science 27: e12766, https://doi.org/…1/avsc.12766. The system of European vegetation syntaxa presented in FloraVeg.EU has been updated to reflect the decisions of the European Vegetation Classification Committee (see point 5 below), and version 3 of the EuroVegChecklist was published on 12 June 2024, with a crosswalk to the original version published by Mucina and collaborators in 2016. Efforts have also been made to collect more photographs of vegetation syntaxa. A new submission portal for syntaxon photographs was created on FloraVeg.EU with automatic functions to fill in some metadata information. By 1 June 2024, FloraVeg.EU contained 4,699 photographs of 476 alliances, contributed by 93 vegetation scientists. The species section of FloraVeg.EU has also been improved. On 1 June 2024, FloraVeg.EU contained 37 plant traits and other characteristics, 36,404 species with at least three characteristics, and 29,779 photographs of 4,233 plant taxa. A report article with a detailed description of the FloraVeg.EU content was published: Chytrý M., Řezníčková M., Novotný P., Holubová D., Preislerová Z., Attorre F. … Axmanová I. (2024) FloraVeg.EU – An online database of European vegetation, habitats and flora. Applied Vegetation Science 27: e12798, https://doi.org/…1/avsc.12798.
(5) European Vegetation Classification Committee (EVCC) The EVCC was coordinated by Wolfgang Willner (AT, Secretary) and Idoia Biurrun (ES, Deputy Secretary). An online meeting of the EVCC, chaired by Wolfgang Willner and attended by 30 participants, was held on 19 January 2024. The main outcomes of the meeting were as follows:
a. Minor changes in the EuroVegChecklist, such as corrections of typos, were approved by vote.
b. Information on the status of the proposal for syntaxonomical and nomenclatural changes in the classes Ammophiletea and Helichryso-Crucianelletea (proposal 003 by Marcenò & Chytrý) was given. The proposed changes had been accepted earlier, but during the process, several nomenclatural problems emerged, which were fixed in the article Marcenò C., Danihelka J., Dziuba T., Willner W. & Chytrý M. (2024) Nomenclatural revision of the syntaxa of European coastal dune vegetation. Vegetation Classification and Survey 5: 27–37. https://doi.org/…7/VCS.108560.
c. The EVCC voted on the proposal for syntaxonomical changes in the vegetation of Mediterranean pine forests (proposal 008 by Bonari & Chytrý). The proposed addition of the new class Pinetea halepensis was not accepted, while the new scheme of alliances within the order Pinetalia halepensis was accepted.
d. The EVCC voted on the proposal by Jiroušek, Peterka & Hájek to add the alliance Erico mackaianae-Sphagnion papillosi in the order Ericetalia tetralicis and to add the alliances Sphagno baltici-Trichophorion cespitosi and Rubo chamaemori-Dicranion elongati in the order Sphagnetalia medii. The proposal was accepted. The accepted changes have been published online in FloraVeg.EU (see point 4).,
(6) Special issues Several Special issues and Topical Collections are in preparation based on the materials presented at previous EVS Conferences:
● “Vegetation survey and restoration of ecosystems” in Rendiconti Lincei, based on the online EVS conference 2021, Guest Editors Fabio Attorre (IT), Michele De Sanctis (IT), Rosario G. Gavilán (ES), Flavia Landucci (CZ), Zygmunt Kącki (PL), Mária Šibíková (SK) and Giuliano Fanelli (IT). Five articles have been published so far. https://link.springer.com/…s/jddjcgijhf
● “Species and community variability in vegetation dynamics and plant biodiversity conservation” in Plant Sociology, based on the online EVS conference 2021, Guest Editors Gianmaria Bonari (IT), Silvia Del Vecchio (IT), Fotios Xystrakis (GR) and Federico Fernández-González (ES). Eight open-access articles have been published and four articles are in press. https://plantsociology.arphahub.com/…lection/101/
● “Plant communities in changing environment” in Biologia, based on the EVS conference in Bratislava 2022, Guest Editors Katarína Hegedüšová (SK), Sándor Bartha (HU), Idoia Biurrun (ES), Milan Valachovič (SK) and Jozef Šibík (SK). Thirteen articles have been published, of which five are open-access. The special issue has been closed. https://link.springer.com/…s/gbijdficbb
● “Classification and diversity of European forests and forest-fringes” in Vegetation Classification and Survey, based on the EVS conference in Rome 2023, Guest Editors Idoia Biurrun (ES), Jorge Capelo (PT), Pavel Novák (CZ), Jozef Šibík (SK) and Wolfgang Willner (AT). Ten abstracts have been accepted, five manuscripts submitted and one article already published. After the inclusion of Vegetation Classification and Survey in the Web of Science, the editor team decided to open a new call with an extended deadline for abstract submission on 15 September 2024 and manuscript submission on 31 December 2024.
Milan Chytrý, Fabio Attorre, Idoia Biurrun, Anna Kuzemko and Joop Schaminée (EVS Steering Committee)