Vegetation Ecology Program

As part of the network of state natural heritage programs, WYNDD works to apply the National Vegetation Classification System (NVCS) to the vegetation of Wyoming. The NVCS is a hierarchical classification system, the upper levels of which have been adopted by the Federal Geographic Data Committee as the standard for use by governmental agencies. The lower, detailed levels of the NVCS are being developed by state natural heritage programs, academic researchers, and agency biologists according to guidelines promulgated by the Ecological Society of America's Panel on Vegetation Classification.

Preliminary descriptions of plant community-types for the NVCS have been developed from literature review and limited analysis of quantitative data. Descriptions of selected community-types in Wyoming are available from WYNDD, and descriptions of types throughout North America are available from NatureServe, the central repository of information from state natural heritage programs.

Through field sampling and review of published and unpublished sources, WYNDD has accumulated information from vegetation samples throughout Wyoming. This information is being entered into the WYNDD location database for plants, animals and vegetation types. These detailed records augment the information available in more general, state-wide sources, such as the Wyoming GAP Analysis Program's land cover maps and the National Land Cover Data maps. These samples also provide biologists with data for describing plant community-types for the NVCS.

Contact George Jones, WYNDD's vegetation ecologist, for more information about vegetation communities in Wyoming.

Last Updated on 10/16/2008 4:00:57 PM