Exploring vegetation virtually with the Global Vegetation Project

Abstract

The postponement and cancellation of field expeditions in response to the global pandemic have left many of us hungry for opportunities to explore our natural world. Furthermore, travel limitations have posed significant challenges for educators, especially in teaching fieldbased courses. It became apparent over the summer of 2020 that the vegetation science community as a whole was yearning to virtually experience diverse plant communities, as evidenced by the broad sharing of photos on Twitter for the #IAVS2020_VirtualFieldTrip. What a joy it was to see such fine landscape photography from enthusiastic scientists sharing exciting botanical and ecological information (Wagner et al. 2020)!