Abstract
The phytosociological database Polish Vegetation Database collects relevés of all vegetation types in Poland. The database was established in 2007 and is located at Department of Biodiversity and Plant Cover Protection, University of Wrocław (<a href="http://synbiot.uni.wroc.pl" target="_blank">http://synbiot.uni.wroc.pl</a>). On March 2012, the database included 40000 relevés collected between 1927 and 2011. Most of relevés was taken from published papers and represents almost all types of habitats of Poland. Large groups of relevés represent meadows and pastures (<em>Molinio-Arrhnehteretrea</em>), broadleaf forests (<em>Querco-Fagetea</em>), arable land communities (<em>Stellarietea</em>), coniferous forests (<em>Vaccinio-Piceetea</em>) and eutrophic reed communities (<em>Phragmitetea</em>). In comparison to other countries in Central Europe, Polish Vegetation Database currently belongs to medium-sized databases, with full functionality and accessibility. The present article describes its development, basic operational information and how it can be used in analysis of vegetation in Poland.
Highlights
Databases contain information stored in a specific manner [1]
The term is used both for the data themselves, as well as for the database management systems
In Europe, the first phytosociological databases appeared in early 1990s, when French SOPHY database appeared and the Netherlands began organizing relevés in a national phytosociological database [2,3]
Summary
Databases contain information stored in a specific manner [1]. Colloquially, the term is used both for the data themselves, as well as for the database management systems. Even without having monitoring plots, relevés made over period of many years are an excellent source of information on changes of plant diversity and are exelent tool for vegetation science [13,14] Effective use of this phytosociological data requires gathering in digital form. An easy way to make phytosociological data available in a widely used format is use of the TURBOVEG program [31] This program was used as a basis for the Polish Vegetation Database. The main part of database contains 29000 relevés (on March 2012) derived from 320 publications dated from 1927 to 2011 (Tab. 1) and unpublished data collected by employees of the University of Wrocław Their most important features are date and geographical coordinates in decimal degrees, acquired directly from GPS receiver or from locations found in Google Maps.
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