The MOVECLIM – AZORES project: Vascular Plant Diversity and Ground Cover Across Elevation (São Miguel, Terceira, Pico & Flores)

Using a standardized, plot-based protocol, permanent 10 m × 10 m plots were established at approximately 200 m elevation steps and subdivided into four 5 × 5 m subplots. All vascular taxa were recorded per subplot, and cover was assigned using the OTV ordinal scale (1–9) derived from the Braun–Blanquet approach (van der Maarel, 1979).

This resulted in 232 event records (eventID) and 2,539 occurrence records (occurrenceID), spanning 58 families, 92 genera, 99 species and 5 subspecies; of these taxa, 45 are Azorean endemics and 40 are native non-endemic. The main objective was to provide a baseline for long-term monitoring and assessment of invasive-species pressure across islands with contrasting elevation ranges and disturbance histories