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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Vegetation of Middle Asia – the project state of art after ten years of survey and future perspectives

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Middle Asia is one of the most diverse regions on earth with high endemism of vascular plants and remarkable habitat richness, mainly due to the considerable altitudinal range (300-7,500 m a.s.l.). The region is considered as one of the 34 global biodiversity hotspots. This paper presents the Vegetation of Middle Asia database (VMA; GIVD ID: AS-00-003; http://www.givd.info/ID/AS-00-003) which is the regional database that covers the area of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The database contains phytosociological relevés collected between the years 2006 and 2016 in different vegetation types with the use of the Braun-Blanquet method. The covered vegetation types include: deciduous forests, rocks, steppes, mires, fens, screes, littoral, segetal and ruderal vegetation. Currently the database contains 2,513 geo-referenced relevés that are already published (approx. 85%) or remain as unpublished data (approx. 15%) with updated nomenclature. Here we present the database structure and descriptive statistics regarding the attributes of the relevés. The VMA is still not fully representative in terms of the geographical distribution of the relevés and habitat diversification. Particularly for Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and southern Kazakhstan, there remains a lack of comprehensive and sufficient phytosociological data. However, we trust that the database will continue to grow in scientific significance via new data addition and cooperation with local researchers.