Vegetation development in the Swiss National Park from 1917 to 2012

The Swiss National Park was founded in 1914 by scientists from the universities of Basel and Zurich. The purpose of the foundation was - beside the conservation and the re-establishment of a wilderness area - the study of the processes starting with the protection of the area and with the cessation of any human impact. For this purpose, numerous permanent vegetation plots were set up from 1917 to monitor the development of the vegetation. The survey has been conducted without gaps in 5 to 10 year intervals till today. Data was sampled consistently over time, i.e. each species growing in a plot was identified and its abundance recorded in all the survey campaigns.