Books & Journals
[Current editors: John Hunter]
Whereas specific scientific papers are already cited throughout the other sections of this website, the aim of this section is to provide and up-to-date list of scientific journals and published books that are either completely devoted to classification of vegetation methods or contain chapters/papers focussing on the subject.
Readers are encouraged to report any publication that is missing in the list by contacting any of the current contributors of VCM.
Scientific journals
[Listed in alphabetical order]
Applied Vegetation Science
URL: http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-AVSC.html
Impact Factor (2011): 1.678
Description: Its scope includes any community-level topic relevant to human impact on vegetation, including nature conservation, management and restoration. Like Journal of Vegetation Science, this journal belongs to the International Association For Vegetation Science (IAVS). Since 2012, it includes a special section, named ‘Vegetation Survey’, where descriptions of new vegetation types in different parts of the world are welcome. Description: The journal publishes original papers that develop new vegetation typologies as well as applied studies that use such typologies, for example, in vegetation mapping, ecosystem modelling, nature conservation, land use management or monitoring. Particularly encouraged are methodological studies that design and compare tools for vegetation classification and mapping, such as algorithms, databases and nomenclatural principles. Papers dealing with conceptual and theoretical bases of vegetation survey and classification are also welcome. While large-scale studies are preferred, regional studies will be considered when filling important knowledge gaps or presenting new methods. VCS also contains permanent sections on "Ecoinformatics" and "Phytosociological Nomenclature".
Vegetation Classification and Survey
Impact Factor: (TBD)
Description: The journal publishes original papers that develop new vegetation typologies as well as applied studies that use such typologies, for example, in vegetation mapping, ecosystem modelling, nature conservation, land use management or monitoring. Particularly encouraged are methodological studies that design and compare tools for vegetation classification and mapping, such as algorithms, databases and nomenclatural principles. Papers dealing with conceptual and theoretical bases of vegetation survey and classification are also welcome. While large-scale studies are preferred, regional studies will be considered when filling important knowledge gaps or presenting new methods. VCS also contains permanent sections on "Ecoinformatics" and "Phytosociological Nomenclature".
Community Ecology
URL: http://www.akademiai.com/content/119710/
Description: This journal is the result of merging two previous publications: ‘Coenoses’ and ‘Abstracta Botanica’. Both its former components and the current journal include some papers devoted to methodological advances in classification of vegetation.
Folia Geobotanica
URL: http://www.springer.com/life+sciences/plant+sciences/journal/12224
Impact Factor (2011): 1.500
Description: Published by the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, this journal covers the broad topics of plant ecology, vegetation science and plant systematics. Several papers related to classification of vegetation can be found in this journal, including a special issue (in 2007) devoted to discuss sampling designs in vegetation survey.
Hacquetia
URL: http://versita.metapress.com/content/120766/?p=d2ba23f49ac14ff8820ba6eb7f73ea3c&pi=0
Impact factor: not yet included in the Web of Science
Description: This open access journal is already included in the SCOPUS and BIOSIS databases. It publishes approx. 50-70% vegetation classification studies, with no geographic restrictions, but mainly from the Balkan Peninsula, from the Apennine Peninsula and from southern Central Europe.
Journal of Vegetation Science
URL: http://www.wiley.com/bw/journal.asp?ref=1100-9233
Impact Factor (2011): 2.770
Description: A journal devoted to all aspects of plant community ecology, with particular emphasis on papers developing new concepts, testing theory or identifying general patterns. Being a journal of the International Association for Vegetation Science (IAVS), several articles can be found developing new approaches for vegetation classification. However, articles presenting vegetation types for specific study areas are better fitted in Applied Vegetation Science.
Phytocoenologia
URL: http://www.schweizerbart.de/journals/phyto
Impact Factor (2011): 0.697
Description: This journal covers all aspects of phytosociology in a comprehensive sense. It is the continuation of the ‘classical’ period of Vegetatio (1948-1974). This journal still contains a significant fraction of classification papers from all continents (approx. 70% of all content), often using very traditional Braun-Blanquetian methods. Recently, Phytocoenologia was published very irregularly so that the medium-term survival of this journal is questionable.
Plant Biosystems
URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/tplb20/current
Impact factor (2011): 1.418
Description: In recent years, this journal became a relevant outlet for publication of vegetation-classification studies (approx. 10-15% of all content). There is no geographic restriction, but most contributions are from Southern Europe.
Plant Ecology (formerly Vegetatio)
URL: http://www.springer.com/life+sciences/plant+sciences/journal/11258
Impact Factor (2011): 1.829
Description: From 1948 to 1974, adherents of the Braun-Blanquet method managed Vegetatio. Therefore, many of the papers published in Vegetatio applied or were exclusively devoted to vegetation classification. From 1975 to 1992 there was a shift towards methodology, theory and application of numerical techniques. Plant Ecology nowadays covers a range of topics in plant ecology in terrestrial and wetland ecosystems. Articles on vegetation classification are normally published in other journals.
Preslia
URL: http://www.ibot.cas.cz/preslia/
Impact factor (2011): 2.521
Description: This is the highest-ranked journal that regularly publishes vegetation-classification studies (approx. 10-15% of all content). The papers are open access, but the journal has a strict geographic focus on the Czech Republic and its adjacent countries.
Remote Sensing of Environment
URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/remote-sensing-of-environment/
Impact Factor (2011): 4.574
Description: A journal devoted to the theory and applications of remote sensing of Earth resources and environment. Recent advances on vegetation mapping issues can nowadays be found in this journal.
Tuexenia
URL: http://www.tuexenia.de/index.php?id=14&no_cache=1
Impact factor: included in the Web of Science since 2011, will receive first IF for 2013
Description: Traditional journal of FlorSoz, the geobotanical society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It publishes any type of study related to vegetation and flora of Central Europe s.l. (or all of Europe in the case of the included Dry Grassland Special Features), including approx. 20-30% vegetation classification studies. The journal is an attractive publication outlet as it offers open access free of charge, full colour print and oversize supplements for vegetation tables – and all that free of charge. Published relevés from Germany are automatically made available in the public vegetation-plot database VegetWeb.
Reference books
[Listed in alphabetical order]
Aims and Methods of Vegetation Ecology
Authors: D. Mueller-Dombois & H. Ellenberg.
Publisher: Wiley
Year: 1974
Classification of Plant Communities
Editor: Robert H. Whittaker
Publisher: Dr. W. Junk
Year: 1978
Data Analysis in Community and Landscape Ecology
Editors: R.H.G. Jongman, C.J.F. Ter Braak & O.F.R. Van Tongeren
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 1995
Data Analysis in Vegetation Ecology
Author: Otto Wildi
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Year: 2010
Description: This books describes the basic processes involved in the analysis (mainly multivariate) vegetation data. It conveys the message that each step in the calculations has a specific, straightforward meaning and that patterns and processes known by ecologists often find their counterpart in mathematical processes and functions. Chapter 6 is specifically devoted to classification of vegetation (mostly hierarchical clustering methods), and Chapters 3 and 4 provide useful information for previous analytical steps.
Pflanzensoziologie – Grundlagen und Methoden.
Authors: H. Dierschke.
Publisher: Ulmer, Stuttgart.
Year: 1994
Description: This is the most extensive book on phytosociological methodology, unfortunately published in German. It summarises the knowledge status nearly 20 years back in a comprehensive manner, i.e. before the advent of many of the modern approaches.
Numerical Ecology
Authors: Pierre Legendre and Louis Legendre
Publisher: Elsevier
Year: 1998 (Second English edition), 2012 (Third English edition)
Vegetation Description and Data Analysis: A Practical Approach
Author: Martin Kent & Paddy Coker
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Year: 2012
Hands-on books
[Listed in alphabetical order]
Numerical Ecology with R
Authors: Daniel Borcard, François Gillet and Pierre Legendre
Publisher: Springer
URL: http://www.bio.umontreal.ca/numecolR/
This book provides the implementation in R of some of the methods described in the well-known book Numerical Ecology (see above). Chapter 4 is devoted to cluster analysis, where the methods illustrated are both hierarchical (agglomerative methods) and non-hierarchical (k-means and partitioning around medoids). Fuzzy clustering is also included ('fanny' function from 'cluster' package).
Tree diversity analysis
Authors: Roeland Kindt and Richard Coe
Publisher: World Agroforestry Center; Nairobi, Kenya
URL: http://www.worldagroforestry.org/downloads/Publications/PDFS/b13695.pdf
A manual for common statistical methods for ecological and biodiversity studies, complementing the R package 'BiodiversityR'. Effective data analysis requires familiarity with basic concepts and an ability to use a set of standard tools, as well as creativity and imagination. Tree diversity analysis provides a solid practical foundation for training in statistical methods for ecological and biodiversity studies. This manual arose from training researchers to analyse tree diversity data collected on African farms, yet the statistical methods can be used for a wider range of organisms, for different hierarchical levels of biodiversity and for a variety of environments, making it an invaluable tool for scientists and students alike.
Book chapters
[Listed in alphabetical order]
Dengler, J., Chytrý, M., Ewald, J. (2008): Phytosociology. – In: Jørgensen, S.E., Fath, B.D. [Eds.]: Encyclopedia of ecology: pp. 2767–2779. Elsevier, Oxford.
Description: On 13 pages, the authors provide a concise English introduction of what modern-day phytosociology and vegetation classification is from their point of view. Good starting point to this topic containing the key references.