PHYTOSOCIOLOGICAL DATABASE OF SLOVAK GRASSLAND VEGETATION

Abstract

In Slovakia, the Central Phytosociological Database has been built since 1996 and it is located in the Institute of Botany, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava. Since 2005, we focused on the collection of phytosociological relevés from semi-natural grassland communities belonging to phytosociological classes Molinio-Arrhenatheretea, Festuco-Brometea and Nardetea strictae. All accessible published relevés were compiled and stored in the Turboveg program. Since 1990 an extensive field survey was caried out with the aim to record the actual stage of semi-natural grasslands in Slovakia after the period of profound land-use changes (collectivisation, abandonment, succession). As a result of this survey, 4988 of recent unpublished relevés were stored in our database. Alltogether, the database of grassland vegetation contains 11 121 relevés, collected by 143 authors between 1924 and 2006. These relevés include 387 765 vascular plants individual records nad 6 439 records of bryophyte and lichen species. The basic statistical information on this database is presented in the paper and the quality of the data is discussed. The possible application of such phytosociological dataset is outlined.