NatureServe
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
NatureServe is a non-profit environmental conservation organization. It was established in 1999 as an umbrella organization for a network of natural heritage programs or conservation data centers that had been set up by The Nature Conservancy. The programs and centers exist in all 50 U.S states, Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean.
These programs and centers exchange their data with NatureServe, which makes it publicly available through NatureServe Explorer, a searchable database.
In the United States, NatureServe maintains the National Vegetation Classification standard for the United States as well as the International Classification of Ecological Communities, currently focused on the Western Hemisphere.