The first comprehensive analysis of vegetation changes across Europe, based on the ReSurveyEurope dataset, is out! In an article led by Stephan Kambach, we analyzed 57,390 time series of vegetation plots. doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Our new study, led by Marc Riera, compares European niches and habitat relationships of alien plant species introduced intentionally or unintentionally. doi.org/10.1111/geb....

Our new article in Science Advances, led by Gabriele Midolo, identifies the main factors driving changes in the species composition of plant communities across Europe: eutrophication, denser, more productive vegetation, and drying of wetlands. doi.org/10.1126/scia...

Distylous flowers in Primula veris (prvosenka jarní). The flower on the left has a short style with anthers above the stigma, while the flower on the right has a long style with anthers below the stigma. Both forms occur within the same population, and distyly prevents self-pollination.

Mixed populations of two early-spring violets of southern European origin are now flowering in the Czech lowlands. Viola odorata (darker bluish violet) has broader stipules with short teeth (upper right). Viola suavis (white or light blue) has narrower, long fimbriate stipules (lower right).

Záznam mé přednášky z Pražského hradu byl zveřejněn na YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLjX...

After publishing species occurrence data in GBIF, we have now also made available online 117,739 vegetation plots from the Czech Vegetation Database in CSV and Turboveg formats, complemented with a data processing tutorial. czechveg.github.io

Do not forget to submit your abstract to the EVS conference in Clermont-Ferrand (deadline: 15 March). I also invite you to attend the workshop "Open vegetation data and their processing in R" on 7 Sep, the arrival day of the conference. Registration: forms.gle/eZYKiFfskR24... @euroveg.bsky.social

We have just published 2,474,166 records of plant species occurrences from the Czech Vegetation Database in GBIF: doi.org/10.15468/94b... These records represent 74% of the plant occurrence data and 30% of all organism occurrence data in the GBIF database for the territory of the Czech Republic.

Gagea bohemica, described by Johann Zauschner in 1776, was the first species native to Bohemia described by a Bohemian botanist. However, it is not endemic to Bohemia. It has a broad distribution across temperate Europe and the Mediterranean. Photo taken today near Moravský Krumlov, South Moravia.

We're back with more webinars! Starting 2026 with two events co-hosted with European Vegetation Survey all about sharing and accessing open vegetation data. Register here for the upcoming webinar on the 13th and follow our updates! us06web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Interested in a PhD in European wetland flora and vegetation? See details here: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/r5ob6...

New interactive global maps of 31 plant traits were prepared by Daniel Lusk, based on plant distribution data from GBIF and sPlot, plant trait data from TRY, and various satellite-based products. Map viewer: global-traits.projects.earthengine.app/view/global-... Article: doi.org/10.1038/s414...

An interview - rozhovor English: www.sci.muni.cz/.../succes..... Česky: www.sci.muni.cz/.../rozhovor...

🌿 Webinar for IAVS Young Scientists 🌿 🎤 Talk: Writing Scientific Papers in Vegetation Science 📣Prof. Milan Chytrý 📅 January 28th, 2026 ⏰ 9:00 AM CET 💻 YS’ Zoom Room ✏️ Registration Form: tinyurl.com/youngscienti... #VegSci #IAVS #YoungScientists

In our new article in Nature Cities, led by Susanne Tautenhahn, we used our recently published European datasets of plant indicator values, linked them to citizen science data, and mapped environmental conditions for Europe and, at a finer resolution, for 326 cities. 🔗 doi.org/10.1038/s442...

Super interesting global meeting of biogeographers - TIBS conference in the cathedral-like auditorium of the Aarhus University, Denmark.

A map of 260 EUNIS habitat types for Europe has been prepared under the leadership of Sara Si-Moussi and Wilfried Thuiller and published in Scientific Data. It shows the most probable habitat for each 100-m pixel. Article: doi.org/10.1038/s415... Map data: doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

The website for the 68th Annual Symposium of the International Association for Vegetation Science has been launched: 2026gijon.iavs-meetings.org Many thanks to Borja Jiménez-Alfaro and his colleagues for this invitation. See you in June in Gijón, on the northern coast of Spain.

The website for the 34th European Vegetation Survey conference in Clermont-Ferrand, France, 7-11 September 2026, is now open: 34evs2026.org

Further evidence of the declining quality of endangered natural habitats has just been published in a new Preslia article on vegetation resurvey by Klára Friesová and collaborators. Open-access article: doi.org/10.23855/pre... Infographic by NotebookLM

Temperate deciduous forests are found in three global regions. We compared taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity of forest plant communities among these regions in a new Ecography article led by Javier Loidi and Josep Padullés Cubino: doi.org/10.1002/ecog... @ecography.bsky.social

Our new paper in Ecology Letters, led by Jan Divíšek, shows that non-invasive alien plant species that successfully establish within local plant communities tend to resemble the resident native species. In contrast, invasive alien species usually differ from native plants. doi.org/10.1111/ele....

The first European classification of vegetation in seasonally drained salt lakes, led by Svitlana Iemelianova from our Vegetation Science Group, and supported by an MSCA4Ukraine grant. Our findings will change the standard European vegetation classification system. doi.org/10.1111/avsc...

In our new article led by Gabriele Midolo, published in Ecology Letters, we show that plant species richness in European plant communities generally decreased between the 1960s and 1980s. However, since the 1990s, this trend seems to have stopped or even reversed. dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele....

From the seminar dedicated to the legacy of Sandro Pignatti. Pier Luigi Nimis is showing the Olivetti typewriter on which Pignatti wrote the Flora d'Italia (1982). This monograph consisted of three volumes with a total of nearly 2300 printed pages.

The event "Celebration the legacy of Sandro Pignatti" is now happening at the Botanical Garden of Rome organised by La Sapienza University of Rome @iavs5.bsky.social #EVS

A wonderful day celebrating the legacy of Sandro Pignatti. At the end of the event, a tree was planted by the Director of the Botanical Garden of Rome, Prof. Fabio Attorre, in memory of Prof. Pignatti. @iavs5.bsky.social #EVS

I am deeply honored and humbled to share that I have been elected as a member of the Academia Europaea.

Our new article in Nature Plants, led by César Leblanc, introduces Pl@ntBERT, an AI model inspired by language models like ChatGPT, but trained on > 1M vegetation plots from the EVA database. Article: doi.org/10.1038/s414... Demo: huggingface.co/spaces/Cesar... GitHub: github.com/cesar-leblan...

Postdoc position in coastal ecology at the University of Oldenburg, suitable for vegetation ecologists, application deadline 28 October uol.de/en/job/postd...

Our new online application EVA-MAP provides interactive maps of vegetation plots from the European Vegetation Archive and ReSurveyEurope databases. It enables filtering the plots by various criteria. More details can be found in this new article in the IAVS Bulletin: www.sci.muni.cz/botany/chytr...

The new issue of the IAVS Bulletin features four articles about two remarkable men who had a huge impact on European and global vegetation science, and who also greatly shaped my own scientific journey: John Rodwell and Sandro Pignatti. cdn.ymaws.com/www.iavs.org...

In our new article, Zdenka Preislerová and I review the trends in describing new syntaxa of European vegetation from the early 20th century to the publication of the EuroVegChecklist (Mucina et al. 2016) and beyond. @applvegsci.bsky.social @euroveg.bsky.social 🔗Open access: doi.org/10.1111/avsc...

"Durancie" is an old plum variety commonly planted in the Moravian Carpathians. It is ripening now, in September. For generations, these plums have been used to create unique regional delicacies. By growing and harvesting them in our garden, I am helping to keep this local tradition alive. 😀

In our new Nature Communications article led by Rashmi Paudel, we show that plant species that spread within their native range have a higher probability of becoming established outside their native range. 🔗https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-63293-6 🔗Sharable PDF link: rdcu.be/eEmQr

In our new Preslia article, led by Barbora Klímová, we corrected bias in the occurrence data using rarefaction and mapped the geographical distribution of plant species richness in Czechia (left: raw data, right: corrected data). 🔗 doi.org/10.23855/pre...

In our new article with Rui-Ling Liu and Wen-Yong Guo in J. Ecol., we quantified how plant strategy scores derived from leaf traits (Pierce method) correlate with other plant traits and plant environmental preferences. 🔗 Open-access article: doi.org/10.1111/1365... ‪@journalofecology.bsky.social‬

Lotus tenuis (a species of slightly saline soils) differs from L. corniculatus mainly by quantitative characters. If both species grow at the same site, the differences are clear: L. tenuis (left): 🌼 smaller flowers, 🌿 narrower leaflets L. corniculatus (right): 🌼 larger flowers, 🌿 broader leaflets

🌱 In our new article led by Luigi Cao Pinna, we show that alien plants in the Mediterranean often shift their niches, i.e. either do not fill or expand their occupied climatic space compared to the native range, partly depending on their traits. 🔗 fulltext: doi.org/10.1111/gcb....

Two subalpine pines from the Rocky Mountains have contrasting seed regeneration strategies. Pinus contorta is serotinous: the seeds remain in the cones for several years. Forest fire releases them, they fall to the ground, and a massive regeneration of even-aged pine forest stands begins.

This is the result of the largest fire ever recorded in Colorado, which lasted for 4 months (Aug-Dec 2020) and burned 840 km2 (!) of forest. Like in other large forest fires, the ultimate cause was the suppression of small fires for several decades, which led to a significant accumulation of fuel.

Many natural habitats in the Rocky Mountain foothills are heavily invaded by two Eurasian grasses: Bromus inermis and Agropyron cristatum agg. Both species were intentionally sown to prevent wind erosion after the conversion of prairie to arable land and subsequent massive dust storms in the 1930s.

Short-grass prairie in the rain shadow of the Rocky Mountains (Pawnee National Grassland, Colorado). In this area with less than 350 mm annual precipitation, the prairie is dominated by grasses with a C4 photosynthetic pathway.

We have begun the Pre-symposium Excursion of the International Association for Vegetation Science in northern Colorado, led by Scott Franklin, Bob Peet, Brenda Wichmann and local experts. These excursions are essential to the international exchange of ideas about the diversity of plant communities.

🌱 University's Community Garden 🌻 The 67th IAVS Symposium is hosted by the University of Northern Colorado. This is University's Community Garden, where faculty, staff and students can grow vegetables and flowers while building community and supporting local biodiversity. @iavs5.bsky.social

🌳 Quercus trojana, a remarkable semi-evergreen oak of the Balkans, Türkiye, and southern Italy, finally has its forests classified! Our international team analyzed vegetation plots across the species’ entire range and created the first vegetation classification of Quercus trojana forests.

🌱🌸 We’re trying to create a wildflower meadow using green hay 🌼🍀 In our nearby village, there’s a Nature Monument with a species-rich dry grassland that needs mowing for habitat care. The hay often gets burned because there’s no use for it, even though it’s full of seeds of rare plants.

Original print of Mattioli's Herbal, 1st Czech edition from 1562, on display in the Kroměříž City Museum. Pietro Andrea Mattioli, a 16th-century Italian physician and botanist.

🌸 This year, we finally (!) have a good yield of apricots (Prunus armeniaca) here in South Moravia, after three years without apricots across the region. Apricots are thermophilous trees, thriving in Czechia’s warmest areas. Paradoxically, though, they are suffering from global warming.