Abstract
This article is protected by copyright. All rights reservedWolfgang SCHMIDT: 0000-0001-5356-4684Ute SCHMIEDEL: 0000-0003-4059-6585Hana SKÁLOVÁ: 0000-0002-1252-2952Petr ŠMILAUER: 0000-0003-3065-5721Marie ŠMILAUEROVÁ: 0000-0002-0349-4179Christian SMIT: 0000-0002-4044-9473Martin STOCK: 0000-0002-6649-2912Vigdis VANDVIK: 0000-0003-4651-4798Karsten WESCHE: 0000-0002-0088-6492Susan K. WISER: 0000-0002-8938-8181Ben A. WOODCOCK: 0000-0003-0300-9951Truman P. YOUNG: 0000-0002-7326-3894Fei-Hai YU: 0000-0001-5007-1745Martin ZOBEL:0000-0001-7957-6704Jan LEPŠ: 0000-0002-4822-7429AbstractAnalysing temporal patterns in plant communities is extremely important to quantify the extent and theconsequences of ecological changes, especially considering the current biodiversity crisis. Long-term datacollected through the regular sampling of permanent plots represent the most accurate resource to studyecological succession, analyse the stability of a community over time and understand the mechanismsdriving vegetation change. We hereby present the LOng-Term Vegetation Sampling (LOTVS) initiative, aglobal collection of vegetation time-series derived from the regular monitoring of plant species inpermanent plots. With 79 datasets from five continents and 7789 vegetation time-series monitored for atleast six years and mostly on an annual basis, LOTVS possibly represents the largest collection oftemporally fine-grained vegetation time-series derived from permanent plots and made accessible to theresearch community. As such, it has an outstanding potential to support innovative research in the fields ofvegetation science, plant ecology and temporal ecology.