An Information Infrastructure for Vegetation Science

University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC

Investigators

Abstract

Vegetation classification is critical for resource mapping, conservation planning and ecological monitoring. This project will provide the information infrastructure, VegBank, that will include field plot data, the plant taxa used, the community classification, and mechanisms for proposing changes. Vegetation plot records support not only classification, but also most research in plant community ecology. A working prototype of a system for acquiring, searching and disseminating field plot records for classifying North American vegetation has been developed and is available on the web. VegBank is a collaboration of four institutions that represent major data sources and users. VegBank will be expanded and tested as a robust, public system for use by the broader plant ecology community. The plant and community classification modules will provide a technical solution for taxonomic ambiguities. The module will be populated with data from collaborating groups. Sharing and replication of data will enable several databases by allowing for linkages that would make an international network supporting distributed queries. A plug-in tool will foster future development by the user community. All of the data will be web accessible.