ArticleAnnals of botany2021
Changes in plant collection practices from the 16th to 21st centuries: implications for the use of herbarium specimens in global change research.
Article in Annals of botany, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- Traditional medicinal knowledge and diversity of medicinal plants in Benin: a systematic review (2014-2023).BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2026Pooled it
- Envisaging a global infrastructure to exploit the potential of digitised collections.Biodiversity data journal · 2023Article
- Comprehensive leaf size traits dataset for seven plant species from digitised herbarium specimen images covering more than two centuries.Biodiversity data journal · 2021Article
- From leaves to labels: Building modular machine learning networks for rapid herbarium specimen analysis with LeafMachine2.Applications in plant sciencesArticle
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
aimsHerbaria were recently advertised as reliable sources of information regarding historical changes in plant traits and biotic interactions. To justify the use of herbaria in global change research, we asked whether the characteristics of herbarium specimens have changed during the past centuries and whether these changes were due to shifts in plant collection practices.
methodsWe measured nine characteristics from 515 herbarium specimens of common European trees and large shrubs collected from 1558 to 2016. We asked botanists to rank these specimens by their scientific quality, and asked artists to rank these specimens by their beauty. KEY
resultsEight of 11 assessed characteristics of herbarium specimens changed significantly during the study period. The average number of leaves in plant specimens increased 3-fold, whereas the quality of specimen preparation decreased. Leaf size negatively correlated with leaf number in specimens in both among-species and within-species analyses. The proportion of herbarium sheets containing plant reproductive structures peaked in the 1850s. The scientific value of herbarium specimens increased until the 1700s, but then did not change, whereas their aesthetic value showed no systematic trends.
conclusionsOur findings strongly support the hypothesis that many characteristics of herbarium specimens have changed systematically and substantially from the 16th to 21st centuries due to changes in plant collection and preservation practices. These changes may both create patterns which could be erroneously attributed to environmental changes and obscure historical trends in plant traits. The utmost care ought to be taken to guard against the possibility of misinterpretation of data obtained from herbarium specimens. We recommend that directional changes in characters of herbarium specimens which occurred during the past 150‒200 years, primarily in specimen size and in the presence of reproductive structures, are accounted for when searching for the effects of past environmental changes on plant traits.
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