Nicola Arndt und Matthias Pohl - Neobiota

areas (vol. 4: SCHAMINÉE et al. 1998). The first volume (SCHAMINÉE et al. 1995) includes a treatment
of the fundamentals, methods and practical application of phytosociology.
In the last decades, a clear development can be observed in vegetation science, in which the main
points are repositioned. Instead of description and classification, the functioning of plant communities
has become the more central theme. In this, experiences of landscape ecology, ecohydrology and
experimental ecology are widely used. More recently, attempts have been made to integrate the results
of different disciplines in computer models or information systems. An example of such an
information system is SYNBIOSYS, a programme that is under development in the Netherlands and
which may serve as an example for the development of such an information system on the European
level.
2 SYNBIOSYS Netherlands
Besides the revision of the plant communities and the synthesis of a national electronic database with
relevés, some other projects have had an enormous influence on the knowledge and documentation of
the vegetation in this country. In a joint undertaking of vegetation and soil scientists, the precise link
between vegetation and environment was examined for all woodland communities (STORTELDER et al.
1998; WOLF et al. 2001). A second project dealt with the development of interesting biotopes, starting
from intensively used agricultural grasslands and fields. Not only for vegetation, but also for certain
animal groups (butterflies, birds), succession schemes were made and interpreted by means of changes
in environmental factors (SCHAMINÉE & JANSEN 1998, 2001). The third project concerns the
distribution of vegetation types. Recently, the first volume of this project was published in a series
entitled ‘Atlas van plantengemeenschappen in Nederland’ (WEEDA et al. 2000). In this series, the
historical and current distribution of the plant communities as treated in the already mentioned
national overview is shown. The results and data of these extensive projects required new analysis
tools, which led to the development of SYNBIOSYS.
SYNBIOSYS is an acronym of ‘Syntaxonomisch Biologisch Systeem’, making clear that
classifications are the foundation of the system (HENNEKENS et al. 2001). Since biocoenoses are the
objective of the system, classifications are necessary to organize these in a systematic way.
SYNBIOSYS has two of these classification levels: the plant community and the landscape (Figures
1a, 1b). The level of the plant community relies on the new national classification of plant
communities of the Netherlands (SCHAMINÉE et al. 1995-1998; STORTELDER et al. 1999). The
classification of landscapes is based on a newly developed hierarchical classification, in which the
highest level coincides with the division into physiogeographical regions, and the third and lowest
level with the division into so-called physiotopes (BAL et al. 1995; STORTELDER et al. 1998). For
every physiotope the patterns and processes of the vegetation complexes are described. The national
vegetation databank with over 350,000 relevés is the foundation of the system, together with the
vegetation tables that stem from these relevés. The core of SYNBIOSYS is however the presence of
identification software, with which the user can examine his own relevés and tables and easily
compare these with the tables of the national classification. In the information system, diagrams, maps
and tables are only partly fixed, which makes the system very flexible and always up-to-date.
The Dutch version of SYNBIOSYS consists of three parts. In the first, encyclopaedic, part, the results
of the above mentioned projects are included. For example, this part comprises the complete
349