Scientific workshop «Theoretical problems of the classification of the plant communities of Russia» (Yalta, November 1–3, 2021)

Thirty years after the publication of the USSR vegetation syntaxa prodromus (Korotkov et al., 1991), the active work on the preparation of the Prodromus of the Russian Federation vegetation (Plugatar et al., 2020) has started. 29 contributions (incl. 5 via Skype), were represented at the Workshop “Theoretical problems of the classification of plant communities of Russia”, that took place in Yalta, Republic of Crimea, on November 1–3, 2021. Twenty six scientists (Fig. 1, 2) from St. Petersburg, Moscow, Novosibirsk, Ufa, Vladivostok, Yakutsk, Syktyvkar, Bryansk, Rostov on Don, Khanty-Mansiysk, Ekaterinburg, Nalchik, Kursk, Yalta) participated this meeting. The reviews of syntaxonomic systems of forests, steppes, meadows, and aquatic, halophytic, synantropic, alpine, arctic, petrophytic, see-shore vegetation and wetlands were represented. The problems, that have appeared after beginning the syntaxa checklists development, such as the validation of units, the dubiousness of some accepted syntaxonomic decisions, poor syntaxonomic knowledge of some regions were discussed. The directors of three Botanical Gardens (from Yalta, Novosibirsk and Vladivostok) of the Russian Academy of Sciences signed documents (Fig. 3) on the starting of a scientific consortium «National Network of Botanical Gardens of the Russian Federation», focused on joint fundamental researches in the vegetation science, ecology, bioclimatology and biogeography; on the development of the National classification of vegetation and National typology of habitats as a scientific basis for assessing the carbon balance, rational use of natural resources and vegetation conservation in the country. Resolution of the Workshop emphasizes the necessity to consider the development of the Russian national vegetation classification as a priority task for phytosociologists in Russian Federation for the next five years.