Cite or Link to VegBank

Why Cite or Link?

One of VegBank's strengths is that its data is permanently archived. This means that you can cite a plot in VegBank and others will be able to follow your citation hyperlink to see the same data you saw at the time of citation.

How do I cite?

To cite a description of VegBank, please use the following citation:

Peet, R.K., M.T. Lee, M.D. Jennings, & D. Faber-Langendoen. 2012. VegBank - a permanent, open-access archive for vegetation-plot data. Biodiversity and Ecology 4: 233-241.

To cite the VegBank database as a whole or a single entity in the database, use the following citation:

Peet, R.K., M.T. Lee, M.D. Jennings, D. Faber-Langendoen (eds). 2013. VegBank: The vegetation plot archive of the Ecological Society of America. http://vegbank.org; searched on [Day, Month, Year].

The URL (web address) may be modified to cite a specific item in VegBank (such as a plot or plant concept). To do this, find its Accession Code (the unique identifier for VegBank data) which can be found on the detailed views of plots (and other data).

Once you know the Accession Code, use the following pattern to create a URL (web address):

http://vegbank.org/cite/[AccessionCode]

[AccessionCode] is the Accession Code of the plot or other data to cite.

Examples

Cite this plot with the following URL: http://vegbank.org/cite/VB.Ob.3736.GRSM125

Cite this community with the following URL: http://vegbank.org/cite/VB.CC.5728.CEGL003906

Cite this plant with the following URL: http://vegbank.org/cite/VB.PC.54588.SPOROBOLUSAIROI

Any item in VegBank that has an Accession Code may be cited in this manner.

Future Development

We plan to add the date and time in which something was viewed on VegBank to the Accession Code. VegBank will be able to read this date, and show you the data as it existed at that time. This way, revisions of data or reinterpretations do not hinder you from viewing and downloading data exactly as someone else did in the past. This is important if someone cites a plot in a journal article, and you want to see the data they used. If changes have taken place since that person saw the data, you will not be seeing the data they used without this functionality.