The European Vegetation Archive (EVA) is a centralized database of European vegetation plots developed by the IAVS Working Group European Vegetation Survey. It has been in development since 2012 and first made available for use in research projects in 2014. It stores copies of national and regional vegetation‐ plot databases on a single software platform. Data storage in EVA does not affect on‐going independent development of the contributing databases, which remain the property of the data contributors. EVA uses a prototype of the database management software TURBOVEG 3 developed for joint management of multiple databases that use different species lists. This is facilitated by the SynBioSys Taxon Database, a system of taxon names and concepts used in the individual European databases and their corresponding names on a unified list of European flora. TURBOVEG 3 also includes procedures for handling data requests, selections and provisions according to the approved EVA Data Property and Governance Rules. By 30 June 2015, 61 databases from all European regions have joined EVA, contributing in total 1 027 376 vegetation plots, 82% of them with geographic coordinates, from 57 countries. EVA provides a unique data source for large‐scale analyses of European vegetation diversity both for fundamental research and nature conservation applications. Updated information on EVA is available online at http://euroveg.org/eva-database.

The authors’ data on the weed species composition in 8 geographic regions of the Russian Federation were laid at the basis of this survey. The segetal flora comprised weeds of cereals, root crops, and perennial grasses. The composition and taxonomic structure of weed species were analyzed. The total number of weedy plants encompassed 686 plant species. The level of regional weed species diversity was positively related to the area planted. Altai Territory, Udmurtia, and Rostov Province had the greatest weed species diversity, with more than 300 species, while Vologda Province had the lowest diversity (193 species). Most species-rich plant families (Asteraceae Dumort., Poaceae Barnhart, Fabaceae Lindl., Brassicaceae Burnet), genera (Potentila L., Artemisia L., Veronica L., Chenopodium L., Silene L., Trifolium L.), their subsequences, contributions of singlespecies families (17–39%) and genera (57–74%) were relatively stable systematic structure indicators. Only 18% of the species were common for all the regions. In each region there were region-specific groups of species. Weed species compositions in geographically close regions – the European part of Russia and the Urals – showed the greatest similarity. As for geographically distant regions (Altai Territory and Rostov Province), their weedy species compositions were distant and contained large groups of region-specific species.

Флористические находки на территории Оренбургской области и некоторых сопредельных территориях (по материалам экспедиций 2016–2017 гг.)

The article contains a comparative analysis of the taxonomical structure of the weedy species composition (segetal flora) in eight regions of Russian Federation: Leningrad, Novgorod, Vologda, Rostov and Sverdlovsk Provinces, Udmurt Republic, Republic of Bashkortostan, and Altai Territory. The segetal flora comprised weeds of cereals, root crops and perennial grasses. The comparison was made separately for the native and alien weeds. The number of native species was higher than that of alien species and varied from 137 to 209 species. The number of alien weeds varied from 99 to 179 species. Vologda Province had the lowest diversity of both native and alien plant species. Udmurt Republic had the greatest native species diversity and Altai Territory had the greatest alien species diversity. The Asteraceae, Poaceae, Brassicaceae, Fabaceae, Lamiaceae, Caryophyllaceae and Scrophulariaceae families dominated in both the native and alien fractions. The authors compared the compositions of species, families and genera of native and alien weeds. Native and alien weedy species showed the greatest similarity in their composition in geographically close regions: European Russia and the Urals. As for geographically remote regions – Altai Territory and Rostov Province – native and alien weedy species compositions were distant. At the same time, the levels of similarity among the native species were lower than among the alien ones. This attests to greater variability in the species composition among native weeds than among alien ones.