The commParent is a recursive key to the concept of the parent level in the classification hierarchy. For example, if this concept were at the association level, the parentClass would be a concept that is the parent alliance type.
The commLevel attribute specifies a level in the taxonomic hierarchy to which a class belongs. Field commLevel is an open list with the possible values defined by the classification system employed. If the party responsible for the record in the commStatus table is using the U.S. National Vegetation Classification, the acceptable levels are defined in the Vegetation Classification Standard of the Federal Geographic Data Committee as adopted June 1997. The standard is available at http://biology.usgs.gov/fgdc.veg/standards/vegstd.htm and the allowable entries for each of the physiognomic levels are listed in the appendix (see http://www.fgdc.gov/standards/documents/standards/vegetation/tables19-41.pdf). If the Braun-Blanquet classification system is employed, the acceptable values are defined in the International Code of Phytosociological Nomenclature (Weber, H.E., Moravec, J. Theurillat, J.-P. 2000. Journal of Vegetation Science. 11: 739-769).
Code that uniquely references this record, allowing reference to this record for this version of this database. Better than a primary key, which is automatically generated by a database and not globally unique. VegBank Accession codes are only generated by VegBank, and therefore data integrity can be guaranteed, unlike with a primary key (number).