Classification of grasslands and other open vegetation types in the Palaearctic – Introduction to the Special Collection

With this editorial, we introduce the Special Collection “Classification of grasslands and other open vegetation types in Palaearctic”. In searching Web Science for classification papers on Palaearctic grasslands, found 207 studies from 1972–2021, including 106 typical works. These originated mainly Europe, with only few Asia one Northern Africa. While Europe 20 th century already had a strong tradition regional studies, launch common plot database (European Vegetation Archive, EVA) continental syntaxonomic reference list (EuroVegChecklist) have spurred developments there recent years. We then seven articles Collection. Four them present certain types, namely spring ( Montio-Cardaminetea ) Grisons, Switzerland, dry Festuco-Brometea inneralpine valleys Austria, montane to subalpine tall-herb Mulgedio-Aconitetea Sudetes Mts., Poland, steppe depressions Molinio-Arrhentatheretea Southern Ukraine. A new synthesis grassland Navarre Spain (all classes, focus ), started an unsupervised translated it into hierarchical expert system, while another study provided first (mainly Ulopteretea prangae Tajikistan. Finally, based GrassPlot compared fine-grain beta-diversities across Palaearctic. Abbreviations : EDGG = Eurasian Dry Grassland Group, EVA European IAVS International Association Science, WoS Science.