EXCHANGE OF FLORISTICS RELEVES OR EXCHANGE OF CALIBRATIONS BETWEEN DATA BANKS?

Abstract

In vegetation science, an exchange between two floristical data banks increases the ecological gradient of the registered releves. Therefore, it also increases the discrimination between the behaviours of plants and, because of this, the distinctness of types of plant community. In practice, an exchange is restricted, on one hand by the priority given to the authors for processing their own releves and, on the other hand, by the interest of a bank which needs a benefit from its registered files, in order to support and develop the data processing. On the other hand, there is another kind of exchange, that of the socio-ecological calibrations of plants, which keeps the data in their initial bank and so protects everyone's interest. That exchange unites the gradients of the banks and improves the understanding of the releves. The socioecological calibI-ation of a plant is the set of its fidelities compared to all the plants of the bank. The calibration defines a statistical space of fidelities, where distances express the implicit ecological differences and determine the classification of relevès in types of plant communities corresponding to homogenous environments. The melting of the calibrations coming from two banks defines a common space of fidelities where plants and releves are localized and classified according to the common gradient covered by the two banks together.