The Changing Uses of Herbarium Data in an Era of Global Change: An Overview Using Automated Content Analysis

Abstract

Widespread specimen digitization has greatly enhanced the use of herbarium data in scientific research. Publications using herbarium data have increased exponentially over the last century. Here, we review changing uses of herbaria through time with a computational text analysis of 13,702 articles from 1923 to 2017 that quantitatively complements traditional review approaches. Although maintaining its core contribution to taxonomic knowledge, herbarium use has diversified from a few dominant research topics a century ago (e.g., taxonomic notes, botanical history, local observations), with many topics only recently emerging (e.g., biodiversity informatics, global change biology, DNA analyses). Specimens are now appreciated as temporally and spatially extensive sources of genotypic, phenotypic, and biogeographic data. Specimens are increasingly used in ways that influence our ability to steward future biodiversity. As we enter the Anthropocene, herbaria have likewise entered a new era with enhanced scientific, educational, and societal relevance.

The Importance of Mycological and Plant Herbaria in Tracking Plant Killers

“…Knowledge of baseline pathogen distributions can be discerned from data-mining and mapping plant pathogen occurrence records of mycological herbaria. Much of the data records in the world's mycological herbaria are now being digitized and uses of specimens have changed from traditional taxonomy and systematics to DNA analyses, global change biology, and biodiversity informatics (Heberling et al, 2019). These examples suggest the importance of historic plant and mycological herbarium collections and the need for not only curation but deposits of both diseased and healthy plant specimens into collections.…”

A strategy to digitise natural history collections with limited resources

“…Biological collections are major sources of valuable information with potential for multiple areas of knowledge (Funk 2018). An exponential growth has been noted of publications on subjects as diverse as taxonomy, global change biology or DNA analyses, to name but a few, based on the collections housed in herbaria (Heberling et al 2019).…”

“…For many collections, it is desirable to capture images of the specimens (imaging). Institutions have established digitisation workflows according to their requirements and preferences (Tulig et al 2012, Haston et al 2012, Nieva de la Hidalga et al 2020.…”

“…Biological collections are major sources of valuable information with potential for multiple areas of knowledge ( Funk 2018 ). An exponential growth has been noted of publications on subjects as diverse as taxonomy, global change biology or DNA analyses, to name but a few, based on the collections housed in herbaria ( Heberling et al 2019 ). Such an increase is possible because of the mass digitisation that herbaria have gone through over the last two decades, facilitating the access to specimens and associated information in online catalogues and also in data aggregators, such as GBIF ( Soltis 2017 ).…”

Herbarium‐based measurements reliably estimate three functional traits

“…With more than 390 million specimens collected from every continent dating back to over 300 years (Thiers, 2020), herbaria are potentially rich sources of functional trait data that could fill existing data gaps. Herbarium specimens were first collected for the primary purpose of documenting and describing plant taxonomic diversity, but are increasingly used in novel ways, including studying functional traits (Heberling et al, 2019). Although a growing number of studies have used specimens to measure functional traits across space and time (Heberling and Isaac, 2017), it is unclear if functional traits measured using dried tissues (i.e., herbarium specimens) can be reliably used alongside standard trait measurements using fresh tissues.…”