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Balkan Vegetation Database (BVD) – updated information and current status
expand article infoKiril Vassilev‡, Hristo Pedashenko§, Alexandra Alexandrova|, Alexandar Tashev|, Anna Ganeva§, Anna Gavrilova, Armin Macanović#, Assen Assenov¤, Antonina Vitkova§, Beloslava Genova«, Borislav Grigorov¤, Chavdar Gussev§, Ermin Masic#, Eva Filipova», Gana Gecheva«, Ina Aneva§, Illona Knolova˄, Ivaylo Nikolov˅, Georgi Georgiev«, Georgi Gogushev¦, Georgi Tinchevˀ, Ivan Minkov«, Kalina Pachedzieva¤, Katerina Mincheva«, Koycho Koev«, Mariyana Lyubenova¤, Marius Dimitrov|, Media Gumusˁ, Momchil Nazarov§, Nadezhda Apostolova-Stoyanova₵, Nikolay Nikolov¤, Nikolay Velev§, Petar Zhelev|, Plamen Glogov», Rayna Natcheva§, Rossen Tzonev¤, Senka Barudanović#, Sofia Kostadinova¤, Steffen Bochℓ, Stephan Hennekens₰, Stoyan Georgiev₱, Stoyan Stoyanov§, Todor Karakievˀ, Tijana Ilić₳, Veronika Kalníková₴, Veselin Shivarov§, Vladimir Vulchev§
‡ Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria
§ Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria
| University of Forestry, Sofia, Bulgaria
¶ Medicinal University, Pleven, Bulgaria
# University of Saraevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
¤ Sofia University, Sofia, Bulgaria
« Plovdiv University, Plovdiv, Bulgaria
» Forest Research Institute, Bulgarian Academy of Science, Sofia, Bulgaria
˄ Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
˅ Directorate Central Balkan National Park, Gabrovo, Bulgaria
¦ Regional Forest Directorate Blagoevgrad, Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria
ˀ Unaffiliated, Sofia, Bulgaria
ˁ Institute of Oceanology, Bulgarian Academy of Science, Varna, Bulgaria
₵ Directorate of Vitosha Nature Park, Sofia, Bulgaria
ℓ Biodiversity and Conservation Biology, WSL Swiss Federal Research Institute, Bern, Switzerland
₰ Alterra, Wageningen, Netherlands
₱ Field Crop Institute, Chirpan, Bulgaria
₳ University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
₴ Beskydy Protected Landscape Area Administration, Rožnov pod Radhoštěm, Czech Republic

Corresponding author: Kiril Vassilev ( kiril5914@abv.bg )

Academic editor: Jürgen Dengler
© 2020 Kiril Vassilev, Hristo Pedashenko, Alexandra Alexandrova, Alexandar Tashev, Anna Ganeva, Anna Gavrilova, Armin Macanović, Assen Assenov, Antonina Vitkova, Beloslava Genova, Borislav Grigorov, Chavdar Gussev, Ermin Masic, Eva Filipova, Gana Gecheva, Ina Aneva, Illona Knolova, Ivaylo Nikolov, Georgi Georgiev, Georgi Gogushev, Georgi Tinchev, Ivan Minkov, Kalina Pachedzieva, Katerina Mincheva, Koycho Koev, Mariyana Lyubenova, Marius Dimitrov, Media Gumus, Momchil Nazarov, Nadezhda Apostolova-Stoyanova, Nikolay Nikolov, Nikolay Velev, Petar Zhelev, Plamen Glogov, Rayna Natcheva, Rossen Tzonev, Senka Barudanović, Sofia Kostadinova, Steffen Boch, Stephan Hennekens, Stoyan Georgiev, Stoyan Stoyanov, Todor Karakiev, Tijana Ilić, Veronika Kalníková, Veselin Shivarov, Vladimir Vulchev.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Vassilev K, Pedashenko H, Alexandrova A, Tashev A, Ganeva A, Gavrilova A, Macanović A, Assenov A, Vitkova A, Genova B, Grigorov B, Gussev C, Masic E, Filipova E, Gecheva G, Aneva I, Knolova I, Nikolov I, Georgiev G, Gogushev G, Tinchev G, Minkov I, Pachedzieva K, Mincheva K, Koev K, Lyubenova M, Dimitrov M, Gumus M, Nazarov M, Apostolova-Stoyanova N, Nikolov N, Velev N, Zhelev P, Glogov P, Natcheva R, Tzonev R, Barudanović S, Kostadinova S, Boch S, Hennekens S, Georgiev S, Stoyanov S, Karakiev T, Ilić T, Kalníková V, Shivarov V, Vulchev V (2020) Balkan Vegetation Database (BVD) – updated information and current status. Vegetation Classification and Survey 1: 151-153. https://doi.org/10.3897/VCS/2020/61348
Open Access

Abstract

The Balkan Vegetation Database (BVD; GIVD ID: EU-00-019) is a regional database, which was established in 2014. It comprises phytosociological relevés covering various vegetation types from nine countries of the Balkan Peninsula (Albania – 153 relevés, Bosnia and Herzegovina – 1715, Bulgaria – 12,282, Greece – 465, Croatia – 69, Kosovo – 493, Montenegro – 440, North Macedonia – 13 and Serbia – 2677). Currently, it contains 18,306 relevés (compared to 9.580 in 2016), and most of them (82.8%) are geo-referenced. The database includes both digitized relevés from the literature (65.6%) and unpublished data (34.5%). Plot size is available for 84.7% of all relevés. During the last four years some “header data information” was improved e.g. elevation (now available for 83.4% of all relevés), aspect (67.7%), slope (66%), total cover of vegetation (54.3%), cover of tree, shrub, herb, bryophyte and lichen layers (27.1%, 20.1%, 40.2%, 11.5% and 2.1%), respectively. Data access is either semi-restricted (65.6%) or restricted (34.4%). Most relevés (84.6%) are classified to syntaxa of different levels. The database has been used for numerous studies with various objectives from floristic, vegetation and habitat-related topics, to macroecological studies at the local, regional, national, continental and global levels. During the last four years, BVD data were requested from 111 different projects via the EVA and sPlot databases.

Keywords

Balkan Peninsula, Balkan vegetation, conservation, TURBOVEG, vegetation plot, vegetation classification

GIVD Fact Sheet

Acknowledgements

Development of the Balkan Vegetation Database was supported by IAVS, EVS and EDGG in 2016-2018, the National Scientific Program “Young scientists and Postdoctoral students” (contracts No. 22-0078/22.04.2019 and DCM 577/17.08.2018), the National Science Fund (contract DCOST 01/7/19.10.2018) and the bilateral project “Study of ruderal flora and vegetation on the territory of Bulgaria and Romania”.

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