Vegetation plots collected in dry grasslands throughout Bulgaria and Romanian Dobrudzha

This dataset containts vegetation plots that were collected specifically for the purpose of the PhD thesis of Salza Palpurina defended at Masaryk University in 2017 (Palpurina, 2017). Together with colleagues from the Vegetation Science Group at Masaryk University and from Sofia University, we sampled an initial dataset of 181 vegetation plots in dry grasslands across Bulgaria and Dobrudzha in the years 2010–2012. Visiting time was during the peak of growing season for dry grasslands in this area, i.e. end of May till beginning of July. We used a protocol for soil and vegetation sampling that matched the protocol employed for field expeditions by Vegetation Science Group at Masaryk University (see the section on Sampling methods). A map and a detailed description of the study area are provided in Palpurina et al. (2015). The dataset with full species composition is stored in the Balkan Dry Grasslands Database, which is registered in the Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases (http://www.givd.info; Dengler et al., 2011) under the code EU-00-013. However, the current dataset is the most up to date in terms of species composition as it also contains updates as a result of revised specimens linked to occurrences from respective vegetation plots.
The PhD thesis was defended at Masaryk University in October 2017 and consisted of several papers which covered only part of the collected vegetation plots collected and analyzed the results for only one of the sampled taxonomic group - vascular plants.