Facilitating the exchange of vegetation data

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Sebastian Schmidtlein
• Subject Area: Ecology and Biodiversity of Plants and Ecosystems ; Physical Geography
• Term: from 2021 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 460840087

There is a huge amount of data on the co-occurrence of plants in the world. The ability to combine such local or regional data and to exchange data between datasets is highly desirable but most of the plot databases have their own vocabularies, definitions of fields and ‘idiosyncratic structures’. The approach of combining such data in large, centralized data-bases is currently developing well. In addition, however, it would be very desirable if data could be exchanged directly and as loss-free as possible with little effort.The fact that there is no generally accepted standard format for loss-free exchange leads to an extremely high expenditure for data conversions. This is not to say that there are no exchange formats but formats such as the one used for import into the Turboveg software are aimed at a specific target data structure and at standardisation rather than a loss-free exchange. For this reason, there has already been an attempt to develop a new open standard to exchange vegetation-plot data (Veg-X). One of the impediments to the adoption of Veg-X by the scientific community has been its complexity, which is required to accommodate the wide variety of ways vegetation plot data are collected and stored. To ensure that the Veg-X standard serves its purpose, the proposed project aims to facilitate its use.The approach is two-fold. One element is the further development of an R-package for the easy import and export of existing plot data into the Veg-X format. This includes the development of an R Shiny app which allows the functions of the package to be used independently of an R-installation. The second part of the project consists of the implementation of a Veg-X export function for Vegapp, an Android app for vegetation records. This will allow to produce Veg-X data in the field. Both, the R shiny app and Vegapp will facilitate the transformation of data in the Veg-X standard for users who are unfamiliar with R. The web-based application and the data collection tool with Veg-X export will contribute substantially to the exchange, harmonization and reuse of vegetation plot data and should thus advance the study of vegetation.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants