New Zealand's forest and shrubland communities: a quantitative classification based on a nationally representative plot network
Question: What are the composition, structure and extent of contemporary, common woody vegetation communities in New Zealand? How do the woody plant communities we describe, based on representative sampling, compare to those of previous New Zealand classifications? Methods: We used cluster analysis to classify data from 1177 systematically located vegetation plots, calculated spatial extent and ecological statistics for each alliance defined, and combined forest alliances into groups to assess correspondence with earlier mapped classifications.