The effect of a pipeline corridor constructed through an ecological reserve in Southern California was investigated by assessing plant species composition and soil chemistry. A homogeneous plant community comprised primarily of exotic annuals was found along the entire length of the corridor. This community has low similarity to the adjacent native plant communities. Soil organic matter was significantly less on the disturbed corridor than in contiguous undisturbed areas. Both available nitrogen and extractable phosphorus values were greater in the disturbed corridor. By contrast, total nitrogen was significantly higher outside the pipeline. The more labile litter of the exotic annuals allows increased mineralization along the corridor than does the more recalcitrant litter of the native perennial shrubs in the undisturbed areas. Once established, the weedy exotic annual litter may completely turn over organic matter and nitrogen, favoring the persistence of the weedy annuals. These exotic annuals appear to be moving into three of the native communities ‐ grassland, coastal sage, and oak woodland ‐ that have less organic matter and a more open plant canopy. Poor restoration efforts can lead to the establishment of such exotics, subsequent invasion into the surrounding undisturbed habitat, and degradation of the reserve.

Over the past 12 years, the lichen trait database LIAS light as a component of the LIAS information system, has grown to a considerable pool of descriptive data based on 71 different qualitative, quantitative, and text characters, for nearly 10.000 lichen taxa, being phylogenetically arranged according to the MycoNet classification. It includes information on morphological, ecological and chemical traits. Multilinguality or internationalization options have become a central challenge of the project. At present, 18 language versions of the database and web interface exist. LIAS light data are accessible in DELTA format and to be used locally and web browser-based, via NaviKey applet. Key words Identification, trait database, characters, biodiversity informatics Project features and concepts for the futureFor the purpose of giving access to treated taxa, monographic and floristic treatments are often assigned with traditional dicho-or polytomous identification keys. Until today, such keys have proven to be of highest value as they mostly provide identification criteria optimized for a specific set of taxa or an area. Nevertheless, the growing use of the internet as well as the need of open access to information and knowledge on biodiversity at a higher or global scale has led to an increased use of internet-related technologies for identifying taxa (Hagedorn et al.

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