The Changing Uses of Herbarium Data in an Era of Global Change: An Overview Using Automated Content Analysis (original) (raw)
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Frontiers in Plant Science, 2020
38 years, and a strong advocate for collections-based research. In 2004, Vicki compiled an inspirational list of uses of herbaria entitled '100 Uses for an Herbarium (Well at Least 72)' (Funk, 2004), a study motivated by her appreciation of the potential for herbaria to make a unique contribution to a remarkable and growing array of research questions, at a time when the long-term survival of many such collections was under threat. The intervening decade and a half has seen that list of uses increase with new and unexpected techniques for the analysis of herbarium specimens and of the data derived from them. Herbarium collections provide a unique record of our global biodiversity and natural history amassed over centuries. According to Index Herbariorum (Thiers, 2020), a global database of herbaria, as of December 2019, there are 3324 active herbaria in the world that collectively are estimated to hold nearly 400 million specimens. They offer a verifiable source of specimens for a plethora of research questions from taxonomy to evolution and change through time. They are being used to help tackle global societal challenges, and their value is currently increasingly realized and explored (
Assessing the Relevance of Herbarium Collections as Tools for Conservation Biology
The Botanical Review
Herbarium collections constitute permanent and often well-documented records of the distribution of taxa through space and time. Since their creation, their uses have dramatically expanded and with many new uses being proposed, including some for which herbaria were not initially intended for. In this paper we assess the potential of these collections on conservation biology, by providing exemplary studies that use herbarium specimens, grouped into four categories: (1) based on occurrence data, such as studies about plant extinction or introduction, or those focused on modelling their ecological niche; (2) based on the specimens themselves, such as morphological or phenological studies to evaluate the impact of climate change; (3) based in genetic data, such as phylogeographic or taxonomical studies; and (4), other applied studies. Resumen Las colecciones de herbario constituyen un registro permanente y a menudo bien documentado de la distribución de los taxones a lo largo del espacio y el tiempo. Desde su creación, sus aplicaciones se han diversificado de forma considerable, y recientemente han emergido nuevos usos, algunos no contemplados originalmente. En este trabajo evaluamos el potencial de estas colecciones para la biología de la conservación, a partir de algunos ejemplos de estudios que usan especímenes de herbario, agrupados en cuatro categorías: (1) basados en datos de presencia, como por ejemplo estudios sobre extinciones o introducciones de plantas, o modelizaciones del nicho ecológico; (2) basados en los propios especímenes, tales como estudios morfológicos o fenológicos para evaluar el impacto del cambio climático; (3) basados en datos genéticos, como por ejemplo estudios filogeográficos o taxonómicos y (4) otros estudios aplicados.
Herbaria are a major frontier for species discovery 2010 Bebber
Despite the importance of species discovery, the processes including collecting, recognizing, and describing new species are poorly understood. Data are presented for flowering plants, measuring quantitatively the lag between the date a specimen of a new species was collected for the first time and when it was subsequently described and published. The data from our sample of new species published between 1970 and 2010 show that only 16% were described within five years of being collected for the first time. The description of the remaining 84% involved much older specimens, with nearly one-quarter of new species descriptions involving specimens >50 y old. Extrapolation of these results suggest that, of the estimated 70,000 species still to be described, more than half already have been collected and are stored in herbaria. Effort, funding, and research focus should, therefore, be directed as much to examining extant herbarium material as collecting new material in the field. herbarium specimen | monograph | taxonomy A ccurate species recognition underpins our knowledge of global biodiversity (1-3). In recent years, the lack of taxono mic activity has led to increased political (4) and scientific calls (3) to invest in the science of taxonomy, which is fundamental for what we know about species-level diversity. The assumptions behind these demands are that increased resources would necessarily lead to increased taxonomic productivity and accuracy. Given finite resources, it is essential that scientifically sound criteria regarding where funds should most usefully be targeted are used to determine priorities for taxonomic research. It is therefore surprising that the processes of collecting, recognizing, and describing species are poorly understood and only rarely discussed (5-7) and that there is little research focused on the processes that result in the recognition of new species. Many groups of organisms are so poorly known that measuring any aspect of the discovery process suffers from lack of data. In terms of completing the species-level "inventory of life," the flowering plants are viewed as an attainable priority research target because they are already relatively well known and the final inventory is estimated to be only 10-20% from completion (8). Furthermore, plants are pivotal organisms for monitoring and measuring global biodiversity because they comprise a species-rich component of almost all habitats on earth (9). An enhanced scientific understanding of the discovery process for flowering plants could help define specific priorities for funding agencies and facilitate the meeting of global biodiversity targets. Here, we focus on the temporal dynamics of the lag between the collection of flowering plant specimens and their subsequent recognition and description as new species . For a representative dataset, the discovery time (I) between the date of the earliest specimen collected (C) and date the description was published (D) was calculated for each species .
Realising the potential of herbarium records for conservation biology
One of the major challenges in ecosystem conservation is obtaining baseline data, particularly for regions that have been poorly inventoried, such as regions of the African continent. Here we use a database of African herbar-ium records and examples from the literature to show that, although herbarium records have traditionally been collected to build botanical reference " libraries " for taxonomic and inventory purposes, they provide valuable and useful information regarding species, their distribution in time and space, their traits, phenological characteristics , associated species and their physical environment. These data have the potential to provide invaluable information to feed into evidence-based conservation decisions.
Utilization of Herbaria in Ecological Studies: Biodiversity and Landscape Monitoring
Herbarium Turcicum, 2023
Herbaria collections—systematic repositories where plant specimens are preserved—are transitioning from traditional taxonomic tools into fundamental resources in ecological research. This comprehensive review summarizes multidisciplinary applications of herbaria collections in monitoring biodiversity and conservation. The review evaluates the historical and contemporary importance of herbaria specimens in documenting changes in species distribution, population dynamics, and community composition, elucidating their roles in understanding the effects of climate change and human intervention. Moreover, it examines how herbaria collections contribute to large- scale temporal and spatial biodiversity analyses, predictive modeling, and conservation planning in the context of advancements in digitization and molecular techniques. This review underscores the integration of herbaria data into mainstream ecological research and policy decisions, advocating for modernizing herbarium techniques and the innovative use of collections. It aims to foster a deeper understanding of complex environmental systems and inform targeted conservation strategies by revealing the multifaceted uses and expectations of herbaria in ecological studies. Thus, it contributes to the broader scientific discussion on sustainable biodiversity management and highlights the relationship between herbaria and ecological studies.
Examining the spectra of herbarium uses and users
Botany Letters, 2018
This paper aims to investigate the spectrum of potential uses and users of herbarium collections. Consideration is given to the implications of these for the way in which we look to develop and manage collections. We first present a simplified classification of herbarium uses based on Funk (2004). This framework is then utilised to investigate the spectrum of uses of herbaria by means of a Web of Science survey covering the period 2013-2016. To investigate the user profile of a herbarium, we categorised visitors to the herbarium at the Natural History Museum, London (BM), using the same categories, for the period September 2016-August 2017. The Web of Science survey suggests that the number of papers published across years in all categories, except phylogeny, is broadly consistent and that their importance relative to each other did not change. Taxonomic work was the largest category with identification ranked second across years. Phylogeny was the only category to show a marked increase in the number of Web of Science publications during the study period with a year on year increase evident. The increase in the use of herbarium collections for phylogenetic studies, and indeed molecular analyses more generally that is implied by this finding provides new opportunities for herbarium-based research but also present challenges for herbarium management. The survey of users of the BM herbarium revealed that researchers undertaking taxonomic work account for the vast majority of users. Research focussed on the history of science was the second largest class of users for the study period. The number of users in the history of science reflects recent efforts at BM to engage with researchers in this field and demonstrates how the base of collection users can be 2 broadened. The high use of the collections by taxonomists is unsurprising but should not be taken for granted. Taxonomists make a significant and essential contribution to herbaria by enhancing the quality of the data that they provide for all users. New developments that allow herbaria to address a broader range of researcher questions should be embraced but in doing so we should not lose sight of the needs of our existing taxonomic users who play a vital role in maintaining and developing the research value of herbaria.
Widespread sampling biases in herbaria revealed from large-scale digitization
New Phytologist, 2017
Nonrandom collecting practices may bias conclusions drawn from analyses of herbarium records. Recent efforts to fully digitize and mobilize regional floras online offer a timely opportunity to assess commonalities and differences in herbarium sampling biases. We determined spatial, temporal, trait, phylogenetic, and collector biases in c. 5 million herbarium records, representing three of the most complete digitized floras of the world: Australia (AU), South Africa (SA), and New England, USA (NE). We identified numerous shared and unique biases among these regions. Shared biases included specimens collected close to roads and herbaria; specimens collected more frequently during biological spring and summer; specimens of threatened species collected less frequently ; and specimens of close relatives collected in similar numbers. Regional differences included overrepresentation of graminoids in SA and AU and of annuals in AU; and peak collection during the 1910s in NE, 1980s in SA, and 1990s in AU. Finally, in all regions, a disproportionately large percentage of specimens were collected by very few individuals. We hypothesize that these mega-collectors, with their associated preferences and idiosyncrasies, shaped patterns of collection bias via 'founder effects'. Studies using herbarium collections should account for sampling biases, and future collecting efforts should avoid compounding these biases to the extent possible.
Combining herbarium data with spatial data: potential benefits, new needs
Czech Journal of Genetics and Plant Breeding, 2012
Herbarium specimens are, potentially, a rich source of information on the past and present distribution of species. For their potential value to be realized, information from the specimen labels must first, if feasible, be georereferenced, and then entered into a database. The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) has devised protocols for making available information from all the world's herbaria (and other natural history collections). In this paper we demonstrate how such data can be combined with spatial data from other resources to determine the distribution and evaluate the ecological characteristics of different species. The demonstration makes evident that the data in GBIF are, at present, biased, more data being available from Europe and North America than from other parts of the world. To overcome this, every effort must be made to improve the human and financial resources available to herbaria in order to broaden the participation in GBIF.
Old Plants, New Tricks: Phenological Research Using Herbarium Specimens
Trends in ecology & evolution, 2017
The timing of phenological events, such as leaf-out and flowering, strongly influence plant success and their study is vital to understanding how plants will respond to climate change. Phenological research, however, is often limited by the temporal, geographic, or phylogenetic scope of available data. Hundreds of millions of plant specimens in herbaria worldwide offer a potential solution to this problem, especially as digitization efforts drastically improve access to collections. Herbarium specimens represent snapshots of phenological events and have been reliably used to characterize phenological responses to climate. We review the current state of herbarium-based phenological research, identify potential biases and limitations in the collection, digitization, and interpretation of specimen data, and discuss future opportunities for phenological investigations using herbarium specimens.