Rose

Rosa canina L.

Herbaria as Tools for Biogeographical and Environmental Studies - Benefit From the Computerization of Collections

Pachystachys spicata

“Plant specimens stored in herbaria are being used as never before to document the impacts of global change on humans and nature," writes Claude Lavoie in his recent paper Biological collections in an ever changing world: Herbaria as tools for biogeographical and environmental studies.

Lavoie has gathered statistics on the use of herbarium specimens in papers that “study pollution caused by carbon dioxide, heavy metals, hydrocarbons, nitrogen, and phosphorus,” and “to identify priority sites for protected areas, especially in Africa and South America.”

The digitization of collections has dramatically increased the number of specimens included in studies. Lavoie writes that since 2004 “82 studies benefited from the computerization of collections. Indeed, the median number of specimens per study rose from 226 (without the use of computerized collections) to 15,295 (with the use of computerized collections)”

Digitizing Seaweed - "Preserving the Forest of the Sea"

"This year, with the click of a mouse and high-speed internet access, seaweed scientists around the world will be able to more quickly and methodically study the impact of climate change on large swathes of seaweeds archived at the University Herbarium at UC Berkeley. Funded by a grant she submitted to the National Science Foundation, in 2011, Miller and her team began taking high-resolution photographs of nearly 80,000 specimens of seaweed collected from the west coast of North America. Undergraduate work-study students have been invaluable to this project, photographing up to 400 specimens a day." - Sheraz Sadiq Keep Reading