RMAVIS v1.0: a Shiny application for the analysis of vegetation survey data and assignment to GB NVC communities

RMAVIS is a Shiny application for the assignment of vegetation sample plot data to British National Vegetation Classification (NVC) communities (Rodwell, 1991, 1992a, 1992b, 1995, 2000). The assignment of vegetation sample plot data to established vegetation classification units using computational methods is a well established and recognised practice (Maciejewski et al., 2020). The results of this assignment process are used in various ways, including assisting in the phase 2 habitat survey (or NVC survey) process (Rodwell, 2006); establishing an ecological baseline and identifying important ecological features such as protected habitats (CIEEM, 2022); and in ecological restoration by providing a proxy for historical reference ecosystems to target and against which to measure restoration progress (Gann et al., 2019; Pywell et al., 2002; Sturbois et al., 2023). In Great Britain (GB) the development of computational methods and programs for the assignment of vegetation survey data to NVC communities began with the development of TABLEFIT (Hill, 1989; Marrs, 2019) and was followed by MATCH (Malloch, 1998). The most recent program, the Modular Analysis of Vegetation Information System (MAVIS), was developed as a windows application in 2000 and was a DEFRA-funded output of the ECOFACT project (Bunce et al., 1999), with the latest version released in 2016 (Smart et al., 2016).