Subject Definitions

Each entry in the index can be tagged with one or more subjects from this controlled list.

If you cannot find a suitable subject for your submission, you can suggest a new one. Suggestions are reviewed by administrators before being added. Do not suggest "Plant communities" or "Vegetation" as subjects because all indexed datasets deal with them.

Subject	Description
Alien species	Datasets or code examining or documenting the occurrence, distribution, or traits of plant species recently introduced to new regions.
Bibliometrics	Datasets or code examining patterns in scientific publishing, such as open data availability, subject distributions, or citation trends across journals or time periods.
Community-environment relationships	Datasets or code examining or documenting how vegetation composition, structure, or diversity is shaped by abiotic factors (use keywords such as climate, soil, topography, or disturbance regime to specify more).
Data analysis methods	Dataset or code for the numerical analysis of community data (add keywords to specify more, like classification, ordination etc.).
Ecosystem functions	Datasets or code examining or documenting functions related to plant communities, such as primary production, nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration, water regulation, or decomposition.
Experiment	Data and code related to experiments
Functional diversity	Datasets or code examining the range and distribution of plant functional traits within and across communities, including trait diversity indices, functional richness, evenness, or divergence.
Invasive species	Datasets or code examining or documenting the occurrence, spread, impact, or management of plant species that proliferate and affect plant communities in unwanted ways.
Land use	Datasets documenting land use, such as agriculture, grazing, or forestry, at vegetation sites, without a primary focus on vegetation responses (→ community-environment relationships).
Plant traits	Datasets or code examining or documenting plant functional traits, such as morphological, physiological, phenological, or biochemical characteristics.
Restoration
Seeds, dispersal	Datasets or code examining or documenting seed characteristics, seed banks, germination, or the dispersal of plant propagules, including dispersal vectors, distances, and recruitment processes.
Site conditions	Datasets documenting the abiotic characteristics of vegetation sites, without a primary focus on vegetation responses (→ community-environment relationships)
Software	Datasets or code accompanying papers that describe vegetation science software tools and packages. Not for analysis scripts tied to a specific study — use Data analysis methods for those.
Spatial pattern	Datasets or code examining or documenting the spatial arrangement, or spatial heterogeneity of plant communities.
Species interaction	Datasets or code examining or documenting interactions between species or individuals in plant communities, such as competition, facilitation, herbivory, pollination, or mycorrhizal associations.
Species richness	Datasets or code examining or documenting the number of plant species in communities or plots, including patterns of richness across environmental gradients, spatial scales, or time.
Vegetation dynamics	Datasets or code examining or documenting temporal changes in the composition, structure, or distribution of plant communities, including succession, disturbance responses, recovery, and regime shifts.
Vegetation types and syntaxonomy	Datasets documenting vegetation types or syntaxonomic units. Not the classification process itself (→ Data analysis methods) and not focussing on → community-environment relationships.