About VCWG

The Vegetation Classification Working Group (VCWG)

The VCWG is an official working group of the International Association for Vegetation Science (IAVS) and its objectives are:

  1. facilitating communication among plant community ecologists who develop and apply vegetation typologies for any organisational level (e.g. synusiae, communities, community complexes, formations, biomes, ...) at any level of typological resolution and for any spatial and ecological extents;

  2. comparing and finding commonalities between approaches to vegetation classification;

  3. discussing concepts and practices of classification approaches that summarize vegetation globally, at coarse typological resolution (e.g. formations, biomes);

  4. discussing concepts and practices of classification approaches that summarize vegetation patterns at fine typological resolution (e.g. associations) with the aim of developing consensus standards;

  5. discussing plot-based analytical procedures for the definition of vegetation types;

  6. supporting national/regional vegetation classification projects, with the aims (1) to develop tools for efficient and scientifically sound nature conservation and land stewardship and (2) to deepen our knowledge of vegetation and ecosystems; and

  7. supporting vegetation classification projects aiming at (1) the integration of classification systems already existing in different countries/regions and/or (2) the development of new classification systems with a spatial extent encompassing multiple countries or continents.

Membership

The Bylaws of the VCWG can be found here. Currently, the VCWG has 199 members from 44 different countries around the world (last update 2018-08-04).

Membership can be obtained free of charge by sending a request to our secretary John Hunter (jhunter8@bigpond.com). IAVS membership is recommended but not required.

Steering Committee

Following an election process, the Steering Committee is current formed by:

Chair: Scott Franklin (University of Northern Colorado, USA): scott.franklin@unco.edu

Secretary: John T. Hunter (University of New England, Australia): jhunter8@bigpond.com

SC member: Javier Liodi (University of the Basque Country, Spain): javier.loidi@ehu.es

SC member: Corrado Marceno (Masaryk University, Czech Republic): marcenocorrado@libero.it

SC member: Gonzalo Navarro (Universidad Catolica, Boliviana): gonzalonavarrosanchez@gmail.com

Specific tasks

The VCWG intends to achieve its goals by organising sub-groups focusing on specific tasks:

  1. Dissemination of the outcome of WG activities [Steering Committee]

  2. Increasing the international network.

  3. Compare and find commonalities between approaches to vegetation classification most commonly used.

  4. Discuss concepts and practices of classification approaches aiming to summarize vegetation globally, at coarse ecological resolution.

  5. Discuss concepts and practices of classification approaches aiming to summarize vegetation patterns at fine ecological resolution (e.g. associations, alliances).

  6. Discuss plot-based analytical procedures for the definition of vegetation types.

  7. Website maintenance [John Hunter].

Annual reports to IAVS governing board:

  • 2016

  • 2018

  • 2019

Group meeting minutes:

  • Business meeting, Bozeman 2018

  • Business meeting, Bremen 2019