1. Taxonomic and Community Classification Resources and Standards
Robert K. Peet
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

2. Resources for plant names
Beware of dangerously obsolete standards A.E. Radford, C.R.Bell. H.Ahles Manual of the vascular flora of the Carolinas. J.K. Small Manual of the southeastern flora.

3. Why we need to use new floras and new resources
New names
New taxon concepts (lumps & splits)
New discoveries
Taxa new to science
New collections & overlooked collections
New data sources (Plots, Heritage lists)
New determinations

4. Resources for plant names
Our preferred standard! Alan S.Weakley (or subsequent eds). Flora of the Carolinas,Virginia, Georgia, and surrounding areas.

5. Resources for plant names
Other modern standards: USDA Plants database
Flora of North America

6. Species concepts & data
Data integration requires unambiguous identification of organisms.
Taxonomic names are ambiguous.
Taxonomic concepts should be represented by a name and a reference.
Single largest impediment to large-scale synthesis in ecology is the failure to document taxonomic concepts.

7. Three concepts of subalpine fir
Splitting one species into two illustrates the ambiguity often associated with scientific names.
Abies bifolia
Abies lasiocarpa
Abies lasiocarpa
sec. Little
sec. USDA PLANTS
sec. Flora North America

8. What are the fir trees of the West?
USDA Plants & ITIS
Abies lasiocarpa
var. lasiocarpa
var. arizonica

9. What is Abies lasiocarpa?
Flora North America
Abies lasiocarpa
Abies bifolia
Partnership with USDA plants to provide plant concepts for data integration

10. High-elevation fir trees of western North America
AZ NM CO WY MT AB eBC wBC WA OR
Distribution
Abies lasiocarpa var. arizonica
Abies lasiocarpa var. lasiocarpa
USDA - ITIS
Abies lasiocarpa
Abies bifolia
Flora North America A B C
Minimal concepts

11. Which species occur with Andropogon glomeratus?
Record data
Find data
Merge data

12. Taxonomic headaches
The Andropogon virginicus complex in Carolina has between 1 and 9 taxa, with 17 different concepts variously applied by 8 important authors.

13. The challenge: The good news:
Few large-scale compilations of concepts and their relationships are available.
The good news:
Multiple organizations are developing tools for concept use and integration.
The greatest progress has been made here in the Southeast

14. Toward a new Atlas How to integrate new sources of data??
How to integrate new sources of data??
Carya carolinae-septentrionalis, Radford et al. 1968

15. Add dynamic access to NCU collection
RAB
Carya carolinae-septentrionalis

16. Add USDA PLANTS records & CVS vegetation plot data
NCU
RAB
USDA
CVS
Carya carolinae-septentrionalis

17. But wait !! There is a concept issue
According to Radford 1968, USDA PLANTS v 4.0, & Weakley 2006
Carya carolinae-septentrionalis
Carya ovata
According to Stone 1997 in Flora of North America.
Carya ovata var australis
Carya ovata var. ovata

19. Some nominal occurrences might or might not represent the taxon
Carya carolinae-septentrionalis

20. Community types with the concept

21. Resources for community composition
Carolina Vegetation Survey website
Mike Schafale & Alan Weakley Classification of the natural communities of North Carolina. Third approximation.
U.S. National Vegetation Classification (NVC; see below)

23. NatureServe Explorer – current home of the NVC

24. Community descriptions with links to VegBank

26. Links Thanks Carolina Vegetation Survey http://cvs.unc.edu
Weakley flora
NCU Atlas of the SE flora
Thanks
EEP, NSF (SEEK, VegBank), NC Bot. Garden