Revising the heathland, scrub & tundra section of the eunis habitats classification document for an eionet consultation Prepared by / compiled by: Douglas Evans Organisation: mnhn eea project manager: Mette Palitzsch Lund

REVISING THE HEATHLAND, SCRUB & TUNDRA SECTION OF THE EUNIS HABITATS CLASSIFICATION

Document for an EIONET consultation

Prepared by / compiled by:
Douglas Evans

Organisation: MNHN

EEA project manager: Mette Palitzsch Lund

The EIONET consultation on a revision of the heathland, scrub and tundra section of the EUNIS habitats classification is open until 1 July 2016 at

http://forum.eionet.europa.eu/nrc-biodiversity-data-and-information/library/consultations/eunis-heathland-scrub-and-tundra-habitat-revision-consultation
This document provides the introduction to the consultation and contains an overview of the proposed new classification.
A spreadsheet giving more detail and explaining the changes is available at the consultation web page above.

A PROPOSED REVISION OF THE HEATHLAND, SCRUB AND TUNDRA SECTION OF THE EUNIS HABITATS CLASSIFICATION
The EUNIS habitat classification is now widely used and has been adopted as a reference under the INSPIRE Directive. However the current classification mostly dates from 2004 (Davies, Moss & Hill 2004) with only a few small changes since then and there have been frequent demands for an update to take into account our increasing knowledge and experience in using the classification.
A meeting in Copenhagen in October 2011 agreed that a revision of the classification was required. Following a workshop held at the European Environment Agency in December 2013 a proposed revision of the marine section (section A) was the subject of an EIONET consultation in summer 2015. At the same time work was started on the forest and later the heath sections of the classification (sections G and F).
The revision of heathland, scrub and tundra habitats was aided by a revised crosswalk to syntaxa (plant communities) produced by the European Vegetation Survey (a working group of the International Association of Vegetation Science) linking EUNIS level 3 habitats to the EuroVeg Checklist (Mucina et al in press). Details of the review process, together with information (including species composition) on the proposed heathland, scrub and tundra habitat types can be found in Schaminée et al (2014, 2016). The revision also takes into account work by the European Commission funded project to produce a red list of European habitats. A summary report on the methodology (using the forest section as example) is available: ‘Linking in situ vegetation data to the EUNIS habitat classification: results for forest habitats’. 
A spreadsheet showing changes from the old classifications, together with descriptions and species composition is also available. The revision only concerns levels 1 to 3, if accepted, units at levels 4, 5 and 6 will be recoded as necessary.
The proposed revision is being consulted with the European Heathland Network and the Bern Convention, among others. NRC biodiversity data and information and the NRC biodiversity and ecosystems, indicators, and assessment networks are also invited.
We will only be able to process comments provided online, please restrict your comments to levels 2 to 3. No codes have been given to the proposed classes at this point, these will be added later.
If you have any questions regarding the consultation please do not hesitate to get in contact with Mette Lund ([e-mail]) and Doug Evans ([e-mail]) copying Annemarie Bastrup-Birk ([e-mail]).
Please be aware that in parallel a consultation on the revision of the EUNIS forest and woodland habitats is running. Your comments are welcome if this section of the EUNIS habitat classification has your interest.
Proposed revised classification, no codes have been given, these will be added later.

Level 1	Level 2	Level 3
Coastal habitats	Coastal dunes and sandy shores	Atlantic and Baltic coastal Empetrum heaths
		Atlantic coastal Calluna and Ulex heaths
		Atlantic and Baltic coastal dune scrub
		Mediterranean and Black Sea coastal dune scrub
		Macaronesian coastal dune scrub
Heathland, scrub and tundra	Tundra	Shrub tundra
		Moss and lichen tundra
	Arctic, alpine and subalpine scrub	Subarctic and alpine dwarf Salix scrub
		Alpine and subalpine ericoid heaths
		Alpine and subalpine Juniperus scrub
		Alpine and subalpine genistoid scrub
		Subalpine deciduous scrub
		Subalpine Pinus mugo scrub
	Temperate and mediterranean-montane scrub	Lowland to montane temperate and submediterranean Juniperus scrub
		Temperate Rubus scrub
		Lowland to montane temperate and submediterranean genistoid scrub
		Balkan -Anatolian submontane genistoid scrub
		Temperate and submediterranean thorn scrub
		Low steppic scrub
		Corylus avellana scrub
		Temperate forest clearing scrub
	Temperate shrub heathland	Wet heath
		Dry heath
		Macaronesian heath
	Maquis, arborescent matorral and thermo-Mediterranean brushes	Mediterranean maquis and arborescent matorral
		Submediterranean pseudomaquis
		Spartium junceum scrub
		Thermo-Mediterranean scrub
	Garrigue	Western basophilous garrigue
		Western acidic garrigue
		Eastern garrigue
		Supra-Mediterranean garrigue
		Mediterranean gypsum scrub
		Mediterranean halo-nitrophilous scrub
		Caspian halo-nitrophilous scrub
	Spiny Mediterranean heaths (phrygana, hedgehog-heaths and related coastal cliff vegetation)	Western Mediterranean coastal garrigue
		Eastern Mediterranean spiny heath (Phrygana)
		West Mediterranean mountain hedgehog heath
		Central Mediterranean mountain hedgehog heath
		East Mediterranean hedgehog heath
		Canarian mountain hedgehog-heath
	Thermo-Atlantic xerophytic scrub	Canary Island xerophytic scrub
		Madeiran xerophytic scrub
	Riverine and fen scrubs	Arctic, boreal and alpine riparian scrub
		Temperate riparian scrub
		Salix fen scrub
		Mediterranean riparian scrub
	Hedgerows	Hedgerows of non-native species
		Highly-managed hedgerows of native species
		Species-rich hedgerows of native species
		Species-poor hedgerows of native species
	Shrub plantations	Shrub plantations for whole-plant harvesting
		Shrub plantations for leaf or branch harvest
		Shrub plantations for ornamental purposes or for fruit, other than vineyards
		Vineyards