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In the summer of 2021, enormous wildfires in the Mediterranean eliminated huge areas of mainly coniferous forest, destroyed adjacent settlements and claimed the lives of many people. The fires indicate effects of climate change and expose consequences of rural demographic changes, deficits in regional and touristic development planning and shortcomings in forest policy. This forum article highlights the dimensions of the problem, calls for a paradigm shift and shows solutions. Land abandonment, woody plant encroachment and non-reflective afforestation are leading to increasing amounts of combustible biomass. To prevent disastrous fires in future, fundamental changes in tree species composition, forest structure and management are essential. Plantations of reseeding pines are to be substituted by spacious or periodically open woodlands of long-lived trees with resprouting capacity such as Mediterranean oaks. Biomass-reducing practices including wood-pasture have to be revived in rural and peri-urban areas. Exemplary fire-resistant multifunctional oak woodlands occur throughout the Mediterranean. Urgent and medium-term measures in the burnt areas include promoting natural ecosystem regeneration, developing regionalized seed banks and nurseries to support native genetic resources, fostering vegetation mosaics of groves and multiple-use open and coppice woodland maintained by traditional practices, and in general forest management aiming at fuel biomass reduction and a policy counteracting land abandonment.

Turkey oak (Quercus cerris) is distributed at the northern, western and southern Anatolia in Turkey. Although these forests are managed by shelterwood systems, degraded forests are subjected to artificial regeneration. in this context, the mature Turkey oak stands in Sipahiler Forests sub-district affiliated Sütçüler Forest District Directorate in Isparta, which did not have natural regeneration conditions, were artificially regenerated by acorn point sowing under the stand shelter. Although the regeneration was successful, the seedlings did not realize sufficient growth. in this context, regenerative cuttings (1- cutting all saplings in the plots from just above the ground level, 2- Cutting saplings from 10 cm height above the ground level, 3- Leaving only one individual at the each sowing plot (excluding the lateral stems) and pruning, 4-Leaving only one individual at the each sowing plot (excluding the lateral stems) without pruning and 5- Control without any cutting and pruning) were applied to the saplings and the 4 years’ height growths of saplings were measured. the treatments were realized just before the vegetation period of 2014 and first measurements were done after the cuttings. To determine the height increment, second measurements were carried out after the vegetation period of 2017. As a result of these measurements, the height growth increment for each treatment was realized as follow: 75.25 cm for the saplings cut from ground level, 61.98 cm for the saplings cut from 10 cm height from ground level, 33.62 cm for the saplings of thinned and pruning, 32.80 cm for the saplings of thinned without pruning and 32.80 for the saplings of control. in final, the height growth of regenerative cutting saplings reached to those which were not subjected to cuttings. These results showed that regenerative cutting is promising to foster the growth of Turkey oak saplings. But for a better understanding, longer observation is needed to see the growth differences between the saplings subjected to regenerative cuttings and others, since the height of regenerative cutting saplings is not higher than the others yet. Keywords: artificial regeneration, degradation, sapling, sprouting

Bu çalışma ile Toros sediri (Cedrus libani A. Rich.) ve kızılçam (Pinus brutia Ten.) fidan üretim alanlarında sorun olan yabancı otlarile mücadelede herbisit ve solarizasyon uygulamalarının fidan gelişimlerine, fidan yaşama oranlarına ve fidanlık maliyetlerine etkileribelirlenmiştir. Araştırma Eğirdir ve Antalya Orman Fidanlıklarında gerçekleştirilmiştir. Çalışmalarda üç farklı etken maddeye sahipherbisitler ve solarizasyon uygulamaları yer almıştır. Uygulamalarınmaliyet analizleri aynı fidanlıklarda uygulanan mekanik mücadeleyöntemi ile karşılaştırılarak yapılmıştır. Herbisit uygulamaları sonucunda yabancı otlarda kontrol sağlanmış olsa da uygulamaların Torossediri ve kızılçam fidan gelişimi ve yaşam oranlarını düşürdüğü belirlenmiştir. Solarizasyon uygulaması ise yabancı otların örtme derecesini çok yüksek oranda etkilemezken, fidan gelişimi ve yaşamaoranlarında artış tespit edilmiştir. Maliyet analizi sonucunda ise herbisit uygulamalarının fidanlık maliyetlerini azalttığı belirlenmiştir.Çalışma genel olarak değerlendirildiğinde; orman fidanlıklarında yabancı otlardan kaynaklanan yüksek maliyet değerlerinin düşürülmesiiçin herbisit kullanımının ekonomik olacağı ancak bu aşamada fidansayısı ve gelişimi üzerindeki olumsuz etkilerinden dolayı bir öneride bulunulamayacağı sonucuna varılmıştır. Bu nedenle fidanlıklardaruhsatlı herbisitlerin kullanımına yönelik araştırmalara devam edilmesi gereklidir. In this work, the effects of herbicides and solarization on weeds at Taurus cedar (Cedrus libani A. Rich.) and Turkish red pine (Pinus brutia Ten.) seedling beds were observed, their effects on seedling emergences and growths were measured and they were assessed in terms of nursery costs. The studies were realized at Eğirdir and Antalya Forest Nurseries. The applications were carried out with three different herbicides including different active substances and solarization. Cost analysis of these applications were done by comparing them with the costs of mechanical treatments. Although herbicides generally affected the occurrence and coverage of weeds, the results were negative in terms of seedling emergences and growths of Taurus cedar and Turkish red pine seedlings. Solarization did not affect the coverage of weeds significantly whereas an increase at seedling emergence and growth was determined. In terms of cost analysis, it was seen that herbicide applications decrease the nursery costs. For a general assessment, to reduce the nursery costs, herbicide applications would be more economic than mechanical applications but at this stage it would not be possible to suggest any herbicide due to their negative effects on seedling survival and growth. At this context, researches with licensed herbicides should be increased to see their positive effects on seedling emergence and growth.

Aim: The EUNIS Habitat Classification is a widely used reference framework for European habitat types (habitats), but it lacks formal definitions of individual habitats that would enable their unequivocal identification. Our goal was to develop a tool for assigning vegetation-plot records to the habitats of the EUNIS system, use it to classify a European vegetation-plot database, and compile statistically-derived characteristic species combinations and distribution maps for these habitats. Location: Europe. Methods: We developed the classification expert system EUNIS-ESy, which contains definitions of individual EUNIS habitats based on their species composition and geographic location. Each habitat was formally defined as a formula in a computer language combining algebraic and set-theoretic concepts with formal logical operators. We applied this expert system to classify 1,261,373 vegetation plots from the European Vegetation Archive (EVA) and other databases. Then we determined diagnostic, constant and dominant species for each habitat by calculating species-to-habitat fidelity and constancy (occurrence frequency) in the classified data set. Finally, we mapped the plot locations for each habitat. Results: Formal definitions were developed for 199 habitats at Level 3 of the EUNIS hierarchy, including 25 coastal, 18 wetland, 55 grassland, 43 shrubland, 46 forest and 12 man-made habitats. The expert system classified 1,125,121 vegetation plots to these habitat groups and 73,188 to other habitats, while 63,064 plots remained unclassified or were classified to more than one habitat. Data on each habitat were summarized in factsheets containing habitat description, distribution map, corresponding syntaxa and characteristic species combination. Conclusions: EUNIS habitats were characterized for the first time in terms of their species composition and distribution, based on a classification of a European database of vegetation plots using the newly developed electronic expert system EUNISESy. The data provided and the expert system have considerable potential for future use in European nature conservation planning, monitoring and assessment.

Motivation: Assessing biodiversity status and trends in plant communities is critical for understanding, quantifying and predicting the effects of global change on ecosystems. Vegetation plots record the occurrence or abundance of all plant species co-occurring within delimited local areas. This allows species absences to be inferred, information seldom provided by existing global plant datasets. Although many vegetation plots have been recorded, most are not available to the global research community. A recent initiative, called ‘sPlot’, compiled the first global vegetation plot database, and continues to grow and curate it. The sPlot database, however, is extremely unbalanced spatially and environmentally, and is not open-access. Here, we address both these issues by (a) resampling the vegetation plots using several environmental variables as sampling strata and (b) securing permission from data holders of 105 local-to-regional datasets to openly release data. We thus present sPlotOpen, the largest open-access dataset of vegetation plots ever released. sPlotOpen can be used to explore global diversity at the plant community level, as ground truth data in remote sensing applications, or as a baseline for biodiversity monitoring. Main types of variable contained: Vegetation plots (n = 95,104) recording cover or abundance of naturally co-occurring vascular plant species within delimited areas. sPlotOpen contains three partially overlapping resampled datasets (c. 50,000 plots each), to be used as replicates in global analyses. Besides geographical location, date, plot size, biome, elevation, slope, aspect, vegetation type, naturalness, coverage of various vegetation layers, and source dataset, plot-level data also include community-weighted means and variances of 18 plant functional traits from the TRY Plant Trait Database. Spatial location and grain: Global, 0.01–40,000 m². Time period and grain: 1888–2015, recording dates. Major taxa and level of measurement: 42,677 vascular plant taxa, plot-level records. Software format: Three main matrices (.csv), relationally linked.

Aims: Vegetation‐plot records provide information on the presence and cover or abundance of plants co‐occurring in the same community. Vegetation‐plot data are spread across research groups, environmental agencies and biodiversity research centers and, thus, are rarely accessible at continental or global scales. Here we present the sPlot database, which collates vegetation plots worldwide to allow for the exploration of global patterns in taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity at the plant community level. Results: sPlot version 2.1 contains records from 1,121,244 vegetation plots, which comprise 23,586,216 records of plant species and their relative cover or abundance in plots collected worldwide between 1885 and 2015. We complemented the information for each plot by retrieving climate and soil conditions and the biogeographic context (e.g., biomes) from external sources, and by calculating community‐weighted means and variances of traits using gap‐filled data from the global plant trait database TRY. Moreover, we created a phylogenetic tree for 50,167 out of the 54,519 species identified in the plots. We present the first maps of global patterns of community richness and community‐weighted means of key traits. Conclusions: The availability of vegetation plot data in sPlot offers new avenues for vegetation analysis at the global scale.

This is a dataset of Ellenberg-type indicator values for European vascular plant species described in this article: Tichý L., Axmanová I., Dengler J., Guarino R., Jansen F., Midolo G., Nobis M.P., Van Meerbeek K., Aćić S., Attorre F., Bergmeier E., Biurrun I., Bonari G., Bruelheide H., Campos J.A., Čarni A., Chiarucci A., Ćuk M., Ćušterevska M., Didukh Y., Dítě D., Dítě Z., Dziuba T., Fanelli G., Fernández-Pascual E., Garbolino E., Gavilán R.G., Gégout J.-C., Graf U., Güler B., Hájek M., Hennekens S.M., Jandt U., Jašková A., Jiménez-Alfaro B., Julve P., Kambach S., Karger D.N., Karrer G., Kavgacı A., Knollová I., Kuzemko A., Küzmič F., Landucci F., Lengyel A., Lenoir J., Marcenò C., Moeslund J.E., Novák P., Pérez-Haase A., Peterka T., Pielech R., Pignatti A., Rašomavičius V., Rūsiņa S., Saatkamp A., Šilc U., Škvorc Ž., Theurillat J.-P., Wohlgemuth T. & Chytrý M. (2023) Ellenberg-type indicator values for European vascular plant species. Journal of Vegetation Science, 34, e13168. https://doi.org/10.1111/jvs.13168 The dataset contains: 1) Harmonized Ellenberg-type indicator values for light, temperature, moisture, reaction, nutrients, and salinity for European vascular plants. 2) Original indicator values from 13 datasets of Ellenberg-type indicator values: - Germany (Ellenberg & Leuschner 2010) - Austria (Karrer 1992) - Cantabrian Range (Jiménez-Alfaro et al. 2021) - Czech Republic (Chytrý et al. 2018) - European mires (Hájek et al. 2020) - France (Julve 2015) - Great Britain (Hill et al. 2000) - Greece (South Aegean) (Böhling et al. 2002) - Hungary (Borhidi 1995) - Italy (Guarino & La Rosa 2019, modified) - Saline habitats (Dítě et al. 2023) - Switzerland and the Alps (Landolt et al. 2010) - Ukraine (Didukh 2011) 3) Species nomenclature is standardized according to the Euro+Med PlantBase (http://europlusmed.org)., The final version of the paper (accepted 8th Dec 2022; published 22nd Dec 2022). Difference from version 1.0: Minor changes in newly added species values calculated from co-occurrence with other species in the EVA database. They were corrected using straight-line calibration.

Aim The first comprehensive checklist of European phytosociological alliances, orders and classes (EuroVegChecklist) was published by Mucina et al. (2016, Applied Vegetation Science, 19 (Suppl. 1), 3-264). However, this checklist did not contain detailed information on the distribution of individual vegetation types. Here we provide the first maps of all alliances in Europe. Location Europe, Greenland, Canary Islands, Madeira, Azores, Cyprus and the Caucasus countries. Methods We collected data on the occurrence of phytosociological alliances in European countries and regions from literature and vegetation-plot databases. We interpreted and complemented these data using the expert knowledge of an international team of vegetation scientists and matched all the previously reported alliance names and concepts with those of the EuroVegChecklist. We then mapped the occurrence of the EuroVegChecklist alliances in 82 territorial units corresponding to countries, large islands, archipelagos and peninsulas. We subdivided the mainland parts of large or biogeographically heterogeneous countries based on the European biogeographical regions. Specialized alliances of coastal habitats were mapped only for the coastal section of each territorial unit. Results Distribution maps were prepared for 1,105 alliances of vascular-plant dominated vegetation reported in the EuroVegChecklist. For each territorial unit, three levels of occurrence probability were plotted on the maps: (a) verified occurrence; (b) uncertain occurrence; and (c) absence. The maps of individual alliances were complemented by summary maps of the number of alliances and the alliance-area relationship. Distribution data are also provided in a spreadsheet. Conclusions The new map series represents the first attempt to characterize the distribution of all vegetation types at the alliance level across Europe. There are still many knowledge gaps, partly due to a lack of data for some regions and partly due to uncertainties in the definition of some alliances. The maps presented here provide a basis for future research aimed at filling these gaps. This project was funded by the Czech Science Foundation (grant no. 19-28491X). LM was supported by Iluka Chair of Vegetation Science & Biogeography, Murdoch University, Perth; IB, JAC and JL by the Basque Government (IT936-16); TMH by the European Social Fund (POCH and NORTE 2020) and National Funds (MCTES) through Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia postdoctoral fellowship (SFRH/BPD/115057/2016) and project UIDB/04033/2020; AC and FK by the Slovenian Research Agency (P1-0236 to AC and program for Young Researchers to FK); SR by the University of Latvia (AAp2016/B041/Zd2016/AZ03); and KS by the Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences (RVO 67985939).

In the summer of 2021, enormous wildfires in the Mediterranean eliminated huge areas of mainly coniferous forest, destroyed adjacent settlements and claimed the lives of many people. The fires indicate effects of climate change and expose consequences of rural demographic changes, deficits in regional and touristic development planning and shortcomings in forest policy. This forum article highlights the dimensions of the problem, calls for a paradigm shift and shows solutions. Land abandonment, woody plant encroachment and non-reflective afforestation are leading to increasing amounts of combustible biomass. To prevent disastrous fires in future, fundamental changes in tree species composition, forest structure and management are essential. Plantations of reseeding pines are to be substituted by spacious or periodically open woodlands of long-lived trees with resprouting capacity such as Mediterranean oaks. Biomass-reducing practices including wood-pasture have to be revived in rural and peri-urban areas. Exemplary fire-resistant multifunctional oak woodlands occur throughout the Mediterranean. Urgent and medium-term measures in the burnt areas include promoting natural ecosystem regeneration, developing regionalized seed banks and nurseries to support native genetic resources, fostering vegetation mosaics of groves and multiple-use open and coppice woodland maintained by traditional practices, and in general forest management aiming at fuel biomass reduction and a policy counteracting land abandonment.

Aim: Vegetation types of Mediterranean thermophilous pine forests dominated by Pinus brutia, Pinus halepensis, Pinus pinaster and Pinus pinea were studied in various areas. However, a comprehensive formal vegetation classification of these forests based on a detailed data analysis has never been developed. Our aim is to provide the first broad-scale classification of these pine forests based on a large data set of vegetation plots. Location: Southern Europe, North Africa, Levant, Anatolia, Crimea and the Caucasus. Methods: We prepared a data set of European and Mediterranean pine forest vegetation plots. We selected 7,277 plots dominated by the cold-sensitive Mediterranean pine species Pinus brutia, Pinus halepensis, Pinus pinaster and Pinus pinea. We classified these plots using TWINSPAN, interpreted the ecologically and biogeographically homogeneous TWINSPAN clusters as alliances, and developed an expert system for automatic vegetation classification at the class, order and alliance levels. Results: We described Pinetea halepensis as a new class for the Mediterranean lowland to submontane pine forests, included in the existing Pinetalia halepensis order, and distinguished 12 alliances of native thermophilous pine forests, including four newly described and three informal groups merging supposedly native stands and old-established plantations. The main gradients in species composition reflect elevational vegetation belts and the west-east, and partly north-south, biogeographical differences. Both temperature and precipitation seasonality co-vary with these gradients. Conclusions: We provide the first formal classification at the order and alliance levels for all the Mediterranean thermophilous pine forests based on vegetation-plot data. This classification includes traditional syntaxa, which have been critically revised, and a new class and four new alliances. We also outline a methodological workflow that might be useful for other vegetation classification syntheses. The expert system, which is jointly based on pine dominance and species composition, is a tool for applying this classification in research and nature conservation survey, monitoring and management. Department of Botany and Zoology, Masaryk University; Free University of Bozen-Bolzano [TN201H]; Czech Science FoundationGrant Agency of the Czech Republic [19-28491X]; Plan Propio of the UCLM [2020-GRIN-29214]; European Social Fund (POCH); National Funds (MCTES) through a Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia postdoctoral fellowship [SFRH/BPD/115057/2016, UIDB/04033/2020] GB was funded by the post-doc programme of the Department of Botany and Zoology, Masaryk University and by the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano through the CONplant project (TN201H), JD, IK, LT and MC by the Czech Science Foundation (19-28491X), FFG by the Plan Propio of the UCLM (2020-GRIN-29214), TMH by the European Social Fund (POCH), by National Funds (MCTES) through a Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia postdoctoral fellowship (SFRH/BPD/115057/2016) and project no. UIDB/04033/2020.

GrassPlot is a collaborative vegetation-plot database organised by the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group (EDGG) and listed in the Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases (GIVD ID EU-00-003). GrassPlot collects plot records (relevés) from grasslands and other open habitats of the Palaearctic biogeographic realm. It focuses on precisely delimited plots of eight standard grain sizes (0.0001; 0.001; ... 1,000 m²) and on nested-plot series with at least four different grain sizes. The usage of GrassPlot is regulated through Bylaws that intend to balance the interests of data contributors and data users. The current version (v. 1.00) contains data for approximately 170,000 plots of different sizes and 2,800 nested-plot series. The key components are richness data and metadata. However, most included datasets also encompass compositional data. About 14,000 plots have near-complete records of terricolous bryophytes and lichens in addition to vascular plants. At present, GrassPlot contains data from 36 countries throughout the Palaearctic, spread across elevational gradients and major grassland types. GrassPlot with its multi-scale and multi-taxon focus complements the larger international vegetation-plot databases, such as the European Vegetation Archive (EVA) and the global database “sPlot”. Its main aim is to facilitate studies on the scale- and taxon-dependency of biodiversity patterns and drivers along macroecological gradients. GrassPlot is a dynamic database and will expand through new data collection coordinated by the elected Governing Board. We invite researchers with suitable data to join GrassPlot. Researchers with project ideas addressable with GrassPlot data are welcome to submit proposals to the Governing Board. Abbreviations: EDGG = Eurasian Dry Grassland Group; EVA = European Vegetation Archive; GrassPlot = Database of Scale-Dependent Phytodiversity Patterns in Palaearctic Grasslands; SAR = species-area relationship.