Advancing the EcoVeg approach as a terrestrial ecosystem typology: From global biomes to local plant communities

Abstract

The goal of the EcoVeg approach is to fully describe and classify the diversity of the Earth's terrestrial ecosystems based on vegetation and ecological processes. The EcoVeg approach was used to develop the International Vegetation Classification (IVC) and various national classifications, which integrate patterns of vegetation growth form, structure, and floristics with ecological and biogeographic drivers at multiple spatial scales, from global formations to local plant communities. The approach remains unique among terrestrial ecological classifications in providing types at these scales. However, as a terrestrial typology, lack of context with respect to freshwater, marine and subterranean realms limited its clarity. Further, growth forms and structure were limited to readily observable features, which excluded important functional traits. The release by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) of the Global Ecosystem Typology (GET) presented an opportunity to revisit the EcoVeg approach because GET has a conceptually robust, scalable, and spatially explicit functional approach for all of earth's ecosystems (terrestrial, freshwater, marine, subterranean). Here, we briefly introduce the EcoVeg approach and the GET, and then outline a biome-based revision to EcoVeg and the IVC that builds on the strengths of GET for global terrestrial types and the IVC for continental to local terrestrial types. The outcome is a revised IVC that we rename the ecosystem-based International Vegetation Classification (eIVC). As with GET, the eIVC has a conceptual foundation based on realms and transitional realms, but it focuses on the terrestrial and transitional terrestrial (wetland) realms. It then fully implements terrestrial biome concepts across all the upper levels based on the integration of vegetation with global ecosystem processes and properties. Interoperable compatibility with GET is reflected in the fact that 84% of the global ecosystem types are largely equivalent, which facilitates the linkage of GET with the continental to local ecosystem types of the eIVC. The revisions that now form the eIVC will enhance collaborative development of ecosystem types across the globe and provide more robust opportunities for co-application of the eIVC and GET in the terrestrial realm for management, conservation, and restoration.