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Updated: Aug 16, 2025
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Robust DNA Isolation and High-throughput Sequencing Library Construction for Herbarium Specimens
Published on: March 8, 2018
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The herbarium of the future
1Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University Herbaria, 22 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Trends in Ecology & Evolution
|December 22, 2022
Summary
Digitizing plant specimens in herbaria creates a global virtual resource. This enhances biodiversity research, conservation efforts, and scientific innovation through new technologies and collaborations.
Area of Science:
- Botany
- Biodiversity Science
- Digital Humanities
Background:
- Herbaria house ~400 million plant specimens across ~3000 institutions globally.
- These collections are crucial for historical ecological understanding, future forecasting, and conservation status assessments.
- Traditional uses of herbaria are being augmented by digital mobilization.
Purpose of the Study:
- To highlight the emergence and impact of a "global metaherbarium" (a digitized, interlinked online collection).
- To showcase how this virtual resource accelerates traditional applications and fosters scientific innovation.
- To demonstrate the value of herbaria in addressing broader societal issues through accessible data and outreach.
Main Methods:
- Digitization of herbarium specimens.
- Online interlinking and mobilization of specimen data.
- Development of innovative applications leveraging the digitized collections.
Main Results:
- An open-access "global metaherbarium" is forming.
- New users are engaging with herbarium data.
- Innovations include e-monographs, machine-learning for species identification, large-scale trait data synthesis, and public outreach initiatives.
- Diverse, interdisciplinary teams are forming around these resources.
Conclusions:
- The digitization and online integration of herbarium collections create a powerful virtual biodiversity resource.
- This "global metaherbarium" is democratizing access to plant data, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, and driving innovation in both basic and applied science.
- Herbaria, through digitization, play a vital role in understanding plant life, predicting future distributions, and informing conservation strategies.
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