Vascular plant occurrences in grasslands of Central Forest Nature Reserve (Russia): a dataset

Abstract

Here we present the sampling event dataset that contributes to studying the flora of grasslands in Central Forest State Nature Biosphere Reserve (part of the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves), Tver Oblast, Russia. The Reserve is located in the SW part of the Valdai Upland within the main Caspian-Baltic watershed of the Russian plain (Latitude: 56° 26' – 56° 39' N, Longitude: 32° 29' – 33° 01' E). The territory of Central Forest Reserve belongs to the subzone of subtaiga. The dataset includes the occurrences of vascular plant species in four types of grasslands from 209 vegetation plots (8,506 associated occurrences), collected in 2013-2014. The dataset described in this paper has never been published before. As the grasslands in Central Forest State Nature Biosphere Reserve are relatively unstudied, we are providing a new comprehensive dataset on the vascular plant species occurrences in the grasslands of the Reserve. The dataset contains representative information on floristic composition of plant communities in localities with assigned GPS coordinates. As the vegetation of the Reserve is typical of the subtaiga subzone, the results of analysing this dataset can be useful for grassland management in the whole subtaiga subzone. During this study, we found one vascular plant species included in the Red Data Book of the Russian Federation, three species from the Red Data Book of Tver Oblast, as well as 10 alien vascular plant species for the Reserve. These data, especially, the occurrences of protected and alien species, contribute to our knowledge of species composition of the grasslands of the Reserve.