The British National Vegetation Classification or NVC is a system of classifying
naturalhabitat types in
Great Britain according to the
vegetation they contain.
A large scientific meeting of
ecologists,
botanists, and other related professionals in the
United Kingdom resulted in the publication of a compendium of five books: British Plant Communities, edited by
John S. Rodwell, which detail the incidence of plant species in twelve major habitat types in the British
natural environment.[1] They are the first systematic and comprehensive account of the
vegetation types of the country. They cover all natural, semi-natural and major artificial habitats in Great Britain (not
Northern Ireland) and represent fifteen years of research by leading plant
ecologists.
From the data collated from the books, commercial
software products have been developed to help to classify vegetation identified into one of the many habitat types found in Great Britain – these include MATCH, TABLEFIT and MAVIS.[2][3]
Terminology used in connection with the British National Vegetation Classification
The following is a list of terms used in connection with the British National Vegetation Classification, together with their meanings:
Communities, subcommunities and variants
A community is the fundamental unit of categorisation for vegetation.
A subcommunity is a distinct recognisable subdivision of a community.
A variant is a further subdivision of a subcommunity.
Constant species
A constant species in a community is a species that is always present in any given stand of vegetation belonging to that community.
Perring, F. H. and S. M. Walters (1962) Atlas of the British Flora – a species was regarded as rare if it was given an "A" rating in this work (these were plants which Perring & Walters judged to be sufficiently rare to merit a special search in order to ensure all records were included in the atlas).
b) for
bryophytes, the source used was Corley, M. F. V. and M. O. Hill (1981) Distribution of bryophytes in the British Isles. This lists the species and the
vice-counties in which they are recorded; presence in under 20 vice-counties was the criterion used for selection as rare.
c) for
lichens, no source was available, and the authors used their own selection of species.