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 163 members from 41 different countries around the world (last update 2015-10-28). 


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: Jürgen Dengler (University of Bayreuth, Germany): juergen.dengler@uni-bayreuth.de
SC member: Flavia Landucci (Masaryk University, Czech Republic): flavia.landucci@gmail.com
SC member: Pavel Krestov (Botanical Garden-Institute of the Far Eastern, Russia): pavel.krestov@icloud.com
SC member: Miquel De Cáceres (Forest Sciences Center of Catalonia, Spain): miquelcaceres@gmail.com

Specific tasks

The VCWG intends to achieve its goals by organising sub-groups focusing on specific tasks [leadership in brackets]:
  1. Dissemination of the outcome of WG activities [Steering Committee]
  2. Increasing the international network [Scott Franklin].
  3. Compare and find commonalities between approaches to vegetation classification most commonly used [David K. Roberts].
  4. Discuss concepts and practices of classification approaches aiming to summarize vegetation globally, at coarse ecological resolution [Pavel Krestov and Javier Loidi].
  5. Discuss concepts and practices of classification approaches aiming to summarize vegetation patterns at fine ecological resolution (e.g. associations, alliances) [Miquel De Cáceres and Flavia Landucci].
  6. Discuss plot-based analytical procedures for the definition of vegetation types [not yet assigned].
  7. Website maintenance [Miquel De Cáceres].