Vegetation Classification and Survey (VCS): Editors’ Choice of the third quarter of 2025

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Prepared by Jürgen Dengler (on behalf of VCS Chief Editor)

Growth of the National Vegetation Plot Database for Great Britain over the years. Source: Marshall et al. (2025)

In the third quarter of its 6th volume, Vegetation Classification and Survey (VCS) has published three articles (see list below). Among these, the Chief Editors selected the contribution by Marshall et al. (2025) as the Editors’ Choice article.

In their Long Database Report, Zeke Marshall and colleagues (United Kingdom) present the new National Vegetation Plot Database for Great Britain (GBNVPD). It combines several pre-existing smaller databases with numerous other datasets that were previously not easily available. With 277,070 plot observations (including numerous resurveyed plots), it is now the second-largest national vegetation-plot database in Europe after the one from the Netherlands. This is an extremely valuable asset for biodiversity, global change and conservation studies at the national level and at the same time will massively improve the data coverage of NW Europe in continental and global studies based on the European Vegetation Archive (EVA; Chytrý et al. 2016) and the global database “sPlot” (Bruelheide et al. 2019). Moreover, with carefully curated fields of in situ measured environmental variables, this database sets a new standard for national vegetation plot databases. We thus can only congratulate Zeke Marshall and his team for this important achievement.

VCS encourages researchers to present their regional to international vegetation-plot databases with Long or Short Database Reports in the journal. This format is based on an exclusive collaboration with the Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases (GIVD; https://www.givd.info/; Dengler et al. 2011), whose standardised Fact Sheet then becomes part of the publication. Such Database Reports with integrated Fact Sheets are an effective means to increase the visibility of valuable databases. Moreover, they can be cited when data from the respective database is used, thus giving the creators and contributors of the database proper credit for their work. Other recent Long Database Reports in VCS include those on the Vegetation Database of Iran (IranVeg; Ramzi et al. 2024) and the Nordic-Baltic Grassland Vegetation Database (NBGVD; Skobel et al. 2024). A complete overview can be found here.

  • Bruelheide, H., Dengler, J., Jiménez-Alfaro, B., Purschke, O., Hennekens, S.M., Chytrý M., Pillar, V.D., Jansen, F., Kattge, J., (…) & Zverev, A. (2019): sPlot – a new tool for global vegetation analyses. Journal of Vegetation Science 30: 161–186.
  • Chytrý, M., Hennekens, S.M., Jiménez-Alfaro, B., Knollová, I., Dengler, J., Jansen, F., Landucci, F., Schaminée, J.H.J., Aćić, S., (…) & Yamalov, S. 2016. European Vegetation Archive (EVA): an integrated database of European vegetation plots. Applied Vegetation Science 19: 173–180.
  • Dengler, J., Jansen, F., Glöckler, F., Peet, R.K., De Cáceres, M., Chytrý, M., Ewald, J., Oldeland, J., Lopez-Gonzalez, G., (…) & Spencer, N. (2011) The Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases (GIVD): a new resource for vegetation science. Journal of Vegetation Science 22: 582–597.
  • Marshall, Z., Wood, C., Mountford, E., Rodwell, J., Strachan, I., Pescott, O., Tatarenko, I., Hodgson, J., Walker, K., (…) & Smart, S.M. (2025) A National Vegetation Plot Database for Great Britain. Vegetation Classification and Survey 6: 181–190. https://doi.org/10.3897/VCS.160378
  • Ramzi, S., Noroozi, J., Gholizadeh, H., Hamzeh’ee, B., Asri, Y., Talebi, A., Moradi, H., Mahdavi, P., Eramsadati, S.S.T., (…) & Naqinezhad, A. (2024) IranVeg – the Vegetation Database of Iran: current status and the way forward. Vegetation Classification and Survey 5: 237–256. https://doi.org/10.3897/VCS.114081, https://vegsciblog.org/2025/02/06/iranveg/
  • Skobel, N., Kozub, Ł., Dembicz, I., Boch, S., Bruun, H.H., Chusova, O., Golub, V., Helm, A., Iakushenko, D., (…) & Dengler, J. (2024) Nordic-Baltic Grassland Vegetation Database (NBGVD) – current state and future prospects. Vegetation Classification and Survey 5: 75–84. https://doi.org/10.3897/VCS.119968, https://vegsciblog.org/2024/06/02/nbgvd-current-state-and-future-prospects/

All articles of Volume 6, 3rd quarter

  • Varela, S.A., Calamari, N.C., Trinco, F.D., Diez, J.P., Weigandt, M., Barzán, F.R., Lezana, L., Eclesia, R.P., López, D.R., (…) & Canavelli, S.B. (2025) Environmental spatial assessment at ranch scale: a tool for optimizing livestock management in Argentine forests. Vegetation Classification and Survey 6: 163–179. https://doi.org/10.3897/VCS.141917
  • Marshall, Z., Wood, C., Mountford, E., Rodwell, J., Strachan, I., Pescott, O., Tatarenko, I., Hodgson, J., Walker, K., (…) & Smart, S.M. (2025) A National Vegetation Plot Database for Great Britain. Vegetation Classification and Survey 6: 181–190. https://doi.org/10.3897/VCS.160378
  • Novák, P., Kalníková, V., Taraška, V., Memiadze, N. & Kharazishvili, D. (2025) Ravine forests in Colchis (Georgia) – Azonal forests in a Tertiary relict flora hotspot. Vegetation Classification and Survey 6: 191–208. https://doi.org/10.3897/VCS.154417