Working Group for
Ecoinformatics
International Association for Vegetation Science
Numerous
research institutions and national agencies have established databanks of species
composition data that serve a multitude of purposes ranging from purely scientific
to applications in nature conservation and landscape planning. Simultaneously,
massive amounts of spatially explicit data on site attributes (e.g. climate,
soils, topography) have become available. In addition, comprehensive data on
specific taxa (e.g. distribution, phylogeny, life-history traits, functional
attributes) are becoming available. This emerging availability of large quantities
of species co-occurrence, site attribute, and taxon attribute data is transforming
the study of ecological communities. The IAVS Working Group for Ecoinformatics
was formed to facilitate the access to and analysis of such data. In particular,
we wish to (1) establish standards for data exchange to facilitate data sharing,
(2) provide tools for data identification, access, integration, storage, and
analysis, and (3) facilitate communication among scientists studying community
ecology through exploration of multiple large databases. We invite vegetation
scientists from around the world to join us in this enterprise.