Register of permanent vegetation plots

The Ecological Data Unit (EDU) was set up within the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology (ITE) in 1984. Its purposes are to collate and make available the accumulating body of data relating to ecological change, and to promote the development of an environmental monitoring programme. The initial task of EDU is to compile registers of data holdings and of survey and monitoring activities, both within ITE and in other organizations that share a common interest in environmental resources. Attention will then be directed towards making data from these documented sources more widely available to accredited users. Projects concerned mainly with monitoring, or having a strong monitoring component, are to be found in most of the Institute's 16 Research Programmes. Through these projects, ITE is assessing change in types of land cover and land use, in ecosystems, and in species populations. Some studies are at the national level; others are at regional or local scales. Many were begun through individuals' active research interests rather than as part of a planned monitoring programme. Inevitably, there are gaps and biases in the body of information that currently exists. Ideally, ITE should maintain a comprehensive record of natural and man-made changes in Britain, but, in practice, this is impossible. However, surveys of biological and other environmental resources are frequently undertaken, both by ITE and by others, so that there is potential for monitoring through the careful selection of surveys to be repeated at appropriate intervals. EDU will make recommendations on the feasibility of this approach as the basis of an integrated programme of monitoring, concentrating initially upon surveys that have recorded the distribution and abundance of biological species. The Register of Permanent Vegetation Plots is the first tangible product of EDU. It identifies numerous long-term vegetation studies that are being conducted by ITE. Many, but not all, of these will continue as a vital component of the Institute's monitoring programme. As EDU's work proceeds, further registers will be produced, covering both the range of data holdings within ITE and relevant monitoring activities by other organizations.