ArticleNature human behaviour2023
The colonial legacy of herbaria.
Article in Nature human behaviour, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed.
- The utility of herbarium collections for genetic monitoring.Bioscience · 2026Review
- Ethical collectomics: A guide to the responsible and fair mobilization of natural history collections.Bioscience · 2026Article
- Using herbarium collections to study genetic responses to global change.The New phytologist · 2026Review
- The promise of digital herbarium specimens in large-scale phenology research.The New phytologist · 2026Review
- Using reflectance spectra and Pl@ntNet to identify herbarium specimens: a case study with Lithocarpus.The New phytologist · 2026Article
- Global Geography of Natural History Museum Specimen Holdings: A Time-Resolved Network Analysis of Mammal Collections, 1900-2020.Biodiversity data journal · 2026Article
- Article
- Using large language models to address the bottleneck of georeferencing natural history collections.Nature plants · 2025Article
- The hidden biodiversity knowledge split in biological collections.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Cones and consequences: the false dichotomy of conifers vs broad-leaves has critical implications for research and modelling.The New phytologist · 2025Review
- Exploring biodiversity through museomics.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2025Article
- Guidelines for the effective and ethical sampling of herbaria.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Review
- Planting for posterity.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Article
- Herbarium specimens reveal links between leaf shape of Capsella bursa-pastoris and climate.American journal of botany · 2024Article
- Herbarium collections remain essential in the age of community science.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Back to the future: Using herbarium specimens to isolate nodule-associated bacteria.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Herbarium specimens reveal links betweenbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Urban inequalities.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Article
- Pressed for space.Nature plants · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
58 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Herbarium collections shape our understanding of Earth's flora and are crucial for addressing global change issues. Their formation, however, is not free from sociopolitical issues of immediate relevance. Despite increasing efforts addressing issues of representation and colonialism in natural history collections, herbaria have received comparatively less attention. While it has been noted that the majority of plant specimens are housed in the Global North, the extent and magnitude of this disparity have not been quantified. Here we examine the colonial legacy of botanical collections, analysing 85,621,930 specimen records and assessing survey responses from 92 herbarium collections across 39 countries. We find an inverse relationship between where plant diversity exists in nature and where it is housed in herbaria. Such disparities persist across physical and digital realms despite overt colonialism ending over half a century ago. We emphasize the need for acknowledging the colonial history of herbarium collections and implementing a more equitable global paradigm for their collection, curation and use.
Indexed as
Identifiers
37308536What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.