Biodiversity & Ground Vegetation

The Expert Panel on Biodiversity and Ground Vegetation is responsible for understorey vegetation inventories on ICP Forests Level II sample plots.

In each country, on each permanent sample plot, it is gathering information on all understorey vegetation species and their abundance. In many countries, bryophytes and lichens are included in the inventories in addition to vascular plants.

This information has been collected at least every five years since the 1990's. Temporal changes in vegetation are often associated to changes in the environment, and therefore, this data can be used when, e.g. global warming and nitrogen deposition are investigated.