__NOTOC__ The British National Vegetation Classification or NVC is a system of classifying

natural Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are p ...

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

types in

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

according to the

vegetation Vegetation is an assemblage of plant species and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic character ...

they contain. A large scientific meeting of

ecologist Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

s, and other related professionals in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

resulted in the publication of a compendium of five books: ''

British Plant Communities ''British Plant Communities'' is a five-volume work, edited by John S. Rodwell and published by Cambridge University Press, which describes the plant communities which comprise the British National Vegetation Classification. Its coverage incl ...

'', edited by John S. Rodwell, which detail the incidence of plant species in twelve major habitat types in the British

natural environment The natural environment or natural world encompasses all life, living and non-living things occurring nature, naturally, meaning in this case not Artificiality, artificial. The term is most often applied to the Earth or some parts of Earth. Th ...

. They are the first systematic and comprehensive account of the

types of the country. They cover all natural, semi-natural and major artificial habitats in Great Britain (not

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

) and represent fifteen years of research by leading plant

ecologists This is a list of notable ecologists. A-D * John Aber (USA) * Aziz Ab'Saber (Brazil) * Charles Christopher Adams (USA) * Warder Clyde Allee (USA) * Herbert G. Andrewartha ( Australia) * Sarah Martha Baker ( UK) * Fakhri A. Bazzaz (USA) ...

. From the data collated from the books, commercial

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

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''.

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. For a list of the constant species, and the NVC communities in which they are present, see

List of constant species in the British National Vegetation Classification The following is a list of vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens which are constant species in one or more community of the British National Vegetation Classification system. Vascular plants Grasses Sedges and rushes Trees Other di ...

Rare species

*A rare species is a species which is associated with a particular community and is rare nationally. :The sources used by the authors of ''

'' for assessing rarity were as follows. :a) for

vascular plant Vascular plants (), also called tracheophytes () or collectively Tracheophyta (), form a large group of land plants ( accepted known species) that have lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. They al ...

s, two sources were used: ::*Perring, F. H. and S. M. Walters (1962) ''

Atlas of the British Flora The ''Atlas of the British Flora'' is a book by Franklyn Perring and S. Max Walters, published by the Botanical Society of the British Isles. It was first published in 1962, with a second edition published in 1976, and a third in 1982. The atla ...

'' – 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). ::*Any species included on lists compiled by the

Nature Conservancy Council The Nature Conservancy Council (NCC) was a United Kingdom government agency responsible for designating and managing National Nature Reserves and other nature conservation areas in Great Britain between 1973 and 1991 (it did not cover Northern ...

of plants found in less than 100

hectad A hectad is an area 10 km x 10 km square. The term has a particular use in connection with the British Ordnance Survey national grid, and then refers to any of the 100 such squares which make up a standard 100 km x 100 km myr ...

s. :b) for

bryophyte The Bryophyta s.l. are a proposed taxonomic division containing three groups of non-vascular land plants (embryophytes): the liverworts, hornworts and mosses. Bryophyta s.s. consists of the mosses only. They are characteristically limited in ...

s, 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 A vice-county (vice county or biological vice-county) is a geographical division of the British Isles used for the purposes of biological recording and other scientific data-gathering. It is sometimes called a Watsonian vice-county as vice-coun ...

in which they are recorded; presence in under 20 vice-counties was the criterion used for selection as rare. :c) for

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.List of rare species in the British National Vegetation Classification A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to: People * List (surname) Organizations * List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America * SC Germania List, German rugby unio ...

Communities by category

In total there are 286 communities in the British National Vegetation Classification. They are grouped into the following major categories: * Woodland and scrub communities (25 communities, prefixed with the letter "W" — 19 classed as woodland, four as scrub and two as 'underscrub') * Mires (38 communities, prefixed "M") *

Heaths A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a cooler a ...

(22 communities, prefixed "H") * Mesotrophic grasslands (13 communities, prefixed "MG") * Calcicolous grasslands (14 communities, prefixed "CG") * Calcifugous grasslands and montane communities (21 communities, prefixed "U") * Aquatic communities (24 communities, prefixed "A") * Swamps and tall-herb fens (28 communities, prefixed "S") * Salt-marsh communities (28 communities, prefixed "SM") * Shingle, strandline and sand-dune communities (19 communities, prefixed "SD" — one shingle, two strandline and 16 sand-dune communities) * Maritime cliff communities (12 communities, prefixed "MC") * Vegetation of open habitats (42 communities, prefixed "OV") A full list of these communities, grouped into the above categories, can be found at

List of plant communities in the British National Vegetation Classification The following is the list of the 286 plant communities which comprise the British National Vegetation Classification (NVC). These are grouped by major habitat category, as used in the five volumes of ''British Plant Communities'', the standard work ...

References

{{NVC Biota by conservation status system Conservation in the United Kingdom Metadata standards