Pladias Database of the Czech Flora and Vegetation

Milan Chytrý 1 , Jiří Danihelka 2 1 , Zdeněk Kaplan 2 3 , Jan Wild 2 , Dana Holubová 1 , Petr Novotný 4 , Marcela Řezníčková 1 , Martin Rohn 5 , Pavel Dřevojan 1 , Vít Grulich 1 , Jitka Klimešová 3 6 , Jan Lepš 7 , Zdeňka Lososová 1 , Jan Pergl 2 , Jiří Sádlo 2 , Petr Šmarda 1 , Petra Štěpánková 1 , Lubomír Tichý 1 , Irena Axmanová 1 , Alena Bartušková 6 , Petr Blažek 7 , Jindřich Chrtek 2 , Felícia M. Fischer 1 , Wen-Yong Guo 2 8 , Tomáš Herben 2 3 , Zdeněk Janovský 3 2 , Marie Konečná 7 , Ingolf Kühn 9 , Lenka Moravcová 2 , Petr Petřík 2 , Simon Pierce 10 , Karel Prach 7 , Helena Prokešová 11 1 , Milan Štech 7 , Jakub Těšitel 1 , Tamara Těšitelová 12 , Martin Večeřa 1 , David Zelený 13 & Petr Pyšek 14 2

Affiliations

  1. Department of Botany and Zoology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kotlářská 2, 611 37 Brno, Czech Republic
  2. Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences, 252 43 Průhonice, Czech Republic
  3. Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Benátská 2, 128 01 Praha 2, Czech Republic
  4. Department of Teaching and Didactics of Biology, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Viničná 7, 128 00 Praha, Czech Republic
  5. Babická 2379/1a, 149 00 Praha, Czech Republic
  6. Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences, 379 82 Třeboň, Czech Republic
  7. Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, Na Zlaté stoce 1, 370 05 České Budějovice, Czech Republic
  8. Section for Ecoinformatics & Biodiversity, Department of Biology, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
  9. Department Community Ecology, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Theodor Str. 4, 06120 Halle, Germany
  10. Agroecosystems Ecology and Conservation Group, Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (DiSAA), University of Milan, via G. Celoria 2, 20133 Milan, Italy
  11. Administration of the Protected Landscape Area Pálava, Náměstí 32, 692 01 Mikulov, Czech Republic
  12. Department of Ecosystem Biology, Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, Branišovská 1760, 370 05 České Budějovice, Czech Republic
  13. Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, National Taiwan University, Roosevelt Rd. 1, 10617 Taipei, Taiwan
  14. Department of Ecology, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Viničná 7, 128 44 Praha, Czech Republic

Published: 11 February 2021 , https://doi.org/10.23855/preslia.2021.001

PDF High Res PDF (30.5 Mb) Appendices

Abstract

The Pladias (Plant Diversity Analysis and Synthesis) Database of the Czech Flora and Vegetation was developed by the Pladias project team in 2014–2018 and has been continuously updated since then. The flora section of the database contains critically revised information on the Czech vascular flora, including 13.6 million plant occurrence records, which are dynamically displayed in maps, and data on 120 plant characteristics (traits, environmental associations and other information), divided into the sections: (1) Habitus and growth type, (2) Leaf, (3) Flower, (4) Fruit, seed and dispersal, (5) Belowground organs and clonality, (6) Trophic mode, (7) Karyology, (8) Taxon origin, (9) Ecological indicator values, (10) Habitat and sociology, (11) Distribution and frequency, and (12) Threats and protection. The vegetation section of the database contains information on Czech vegetation types extracted from the monograph Vegetation of the Czech Republic. The data are supplemented by national botanical bibliographies, electronic versions of the standard national flora and vegetation monographs, a database of more than 19,000 pictures of plant taxa and vegetation types, and digital maps (shapefiles) with botanical information. The data from the database are available online on a public portal www.pladias.cz, which also provides download options for various datasets and online identification keys to the species and vegetation types of the Czech Republic. In this paper, we describe the general scope, structure and content of the database, and details of the data on plant characteristics. To illustrate the data and describe the main geographic patterns in selected plant characteristics, we provide maps of mean values of numerical characteristics or proportions of categories for categorical characteristics on the map of the country in a grid of 5 longitudinal × 3 latitudinal minutes (approximately 6.0 km × 5.5 km). We also summarize the main variation patterns in the functional traits in the Czech flora using the principal component analysis.

Keywords

biodiversity information, Czech Republic, ecoinformatics, flora, online database, plant traits, species distribution data, vascular plants, vegetation types

How to cite

Chytrý M., Danihelka J., Kaplan Z., Wild J., Holubová D., Novotný P., Řezníčková M., Rohn M., Dřevojan P., Grulich V., Klimešová J., Lepš J., Lososová Z., Pergl J., Sádlo J., Šmarda P., Štěpánková P., Tichý L., Axmanová I., Bartušková A., Blažek P., Chrtek J. Jr., Fischer F. M., Guo W.-Y., Herben T., Janovský Z., Konečná M., Kühn I., Moravcová L., Petřík P., Pierce S., Prach K., Prokešová H., Štech M., Těšitel J., Těšitelová T., Večeřa M., Zelený D. & Pyšek P. (2021) Pladias Database of the Czech Flora and Vegetation. – Preslia 93: 1–87, https://doi.org/10.23855/preslia.2021.001