These plant libraries are key to humanity’s future. Let’s preserve them.
Cassandra Quave is a professor of dermatology and human health at Emory University School of Medicine and author of “The Plant Hunter: A Scientist’s Quest for Nature’s Next Medicines.”I never meant to become curator of the Emory University herbarium. It happened by chance, 12 years ago. I needed access to an herbarium — a library of plant specimens and information about them.On that first visit, the herbarium workroom was dusty and filled with old furniture from the biology department. The collection room fared no better: century-old fragments of plants pasted onto large sheets of paper were stuffed into manila folders, packed too tightly in metal cabinets lined with mercury-dipped felt used as an insect repellent.I took on the role of curator on a voluntary basis: It was made clear to me that there would be no salary, no operational budget. If I wanted to rescue and revitalize the herbarium, I would need to raise the money myself. I wasn’t surprised. Despite their vital importance to biodiversity research, herbaria are undervalued and increasingly endangered.An herbarium serves as a natural-history museum that scientists depend on for research on climate change, environmental pollution, biodiversity, plant pathology, evolution, ecosystem dynamics and even the discovery of new foods and drugs. There are about 750 active herbaria in the United States, 490 of them at universities. University herbaria are critical resources for educating the next generation of scientists studying and safeguarding plant life.But over the past five years, I’ve watched eight herbaria across the country shutter their doors or get packed up and shipped off to another site. In 2017, the closure of a 500,000-specimen herbarium at the University of Louisiana at Monroe required relocation to a non-university research institute in Texas.Most devastatingly, last month, Duke University decided to close its herbarium. A unique collection of 825,000 specimens of algae, bryophytes, lichen, fungi and plants, the century-old Duke Herbarium is one of the largest in the United States, the second-largest among private universities (after Harvard’s). It is home to an incredibly important collection of organisms from the southeastern United States coastal plains, a threatened area rich in biodiverse flora.The reasons herbaria are being closed are obvious, if flawed: A room full of dead plants that can cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to operate is not as exciting as the latest multimillion-dollar microscope or as easy to fund through government grants as biomedical research. Power in science comes down to money and space; herbaria require a lot of space, and even though they serve as a kind of library of life on Earth, they bring in little to no grant money. They are often subject to the resource-allocation priorities of a university’s leadership at any given time, making them incredibly vulnerable to neglect or divestment.But herbaria are key to biodiversity and humanity’s future. Earth is home to an estimated 2.5 million fungi and up to 500,000 types of plants (including bryophytes and algae), and we have yet to scientifically describe and name all of them. In the past three years, scientists have named more than 8,600 plants as new to science, according to Britain’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Yet even as scientists race to identify, describe and name species, we are losing many at an alarming pace. Indeed, Kew estimated that 3 in 4 species yet to be described are likely at risk of extinction. Moreover, 45 percent of all flowering plants are likely at risk of extinction largely because of human-created pressures, such as conversion of lands for agriculture and urban expansion, resource extraction, and climate change.To save biodiversity, we must first document and monitor it to identify what drives species loss and then develop solutions. My work as an ethnobotanist leads me to biodiversity hotspots — areas that are biologically rich and deeply threatened — across the globe, where I work with my team and local collaborators and communities to collect plants in the wild, pressing them between sheets of newspaper and drying them so they can be deposited into an herbarium and studied. This is a tried and true process based on techniques developed by Italian physician-botanist Luca Ghini (1490-1556) and later used by the father of modern taxonomy, Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), and evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin (1809-1882). For centuries, naturalists have collected specimens — foods such as black pepper and medicines like fever tree bark — that we now take for granted.When properly cared for, herbarium specimens can last centuries; the oldest extant herbarium is held in Rome, prepared nearly 500 years ago. Such specimens provide an incredibly important window into human history, illuminating which plants grew where in the world and when. For example, it is only thanks to herbarium specimens collected in the 1550s from a garden in Pisa, Italy, that we know what the first European-grown tomatoes — tomatoes were originally sourced from Mexico — looked like and what their genetic makeup was.Advanced tools in genetics and chemistry are opening new ways to learn more about past foods, medicines and wild plants and might hold clues for saving future crops from pests, disease and a changing climate. And imagine what scientists 500 years in the future could do with the specimens we collect and save today. Undoubtedly, many of the species I’ve collected and curated will no longer exist in nature in the next century, let alone in another five hundred years. These dried fragments of plant tissue might be all that is left for future generations to ponder.Over the past dozen years, I’ve been thrilled to see the Emory herbarium grow and once again become a vital resource for botanical research and education on campus. In addition to repairing and annotating specimens, we also brought the collection into the modern era through a digitization program, sharing images and collection data through the Southeast Regional Network of Expertise and Collections, making our herbarium accessible to students and scholars worldwide.This year, the Emory herbarium celebrates its 75th anniversary. But will it survive another 75 years? The diminishing value placed on university herbaria and taxonomic science threatens the very infrastructure necessary for effective environmental stewardship and the protection of endangered species. Herbaria are not just repositories of historical data; they are the bedrock of environmental conservation efforts. They are nature’s last hope in the battle against biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse. We must do all we can to save them.
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Cassandra Quave is a professor of dermatology and human health at Emory University School of Medicine and author of “The Plant Hunter: A Scientist’s Quest for Nature’s Next Medicines.”
I never meant to become curator of the Emory University herbarium. It happened by chance, 12 years ago. I needed access to an herbarium — a library of plant specimens and information about them.
On that first visit, the herbarium workroom was dusty and filled with old furniture from the biology department. The collection room fared no better: century-old fragments of plants pasted onto large sheets of paper were stuffed into manila folders, packed too tightly in metal cabinets lined with mercury-dipped felt used as an insect repellent.
I took on the role of curator on a voluntary basis: It was made clear to me that there would be no salary, no operational budget. If I wanted to rescue and revitalize the herbarium, I would need to raise the money myself. I wasn’t surprised. Despite their vital importance to biodiversity research, herbaria are undervalued and increasingly endangered.
An herbarium serves as a natural-history museum that scientists depend on for research on climate change, environmental pollution, biodiversity, plant pathology, evolution, ecosystem dynamics and even the discovery of new foods and drugs. There are about 750 active herbaria in the United States, 490 of them at universities. University herbaria are critical resources for educating the next generation of scientists studying and safeguarding plant life.
But over the past five years, I’ve watched eight herbaria across the country shutter their doors or get packed up and shipped off to another site. In 2017, the closure of a 500,000-specimen herbarium at the University of Louisiana at Monroe required relocation to a non-university research institute in Texas.
Most devastatingly, last month, Duke University decided to close its herbarium. A unique collection of 825,000 specimens of algae, bryophytes, lichen, fungi and plants, the century-old Duke Herbarium is one of the largest in the United States, the second-largest among private universities (after Harvard’s). It is home to an incredibly important collection of organisms from the southeastern United States coastal plains, a threatened area rich in biodiverse flora.
The reasons herbaria are being closed are obvious, if flawed: A room full of dead plants that can cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to operate is not as exciting as the latest multimillion-dollar microscope or as easy to fund through government grants as biomedical research. Power in science comes down to money and space; herbaria require a lot of space, and even though they serve as a kind of library of life on Earth, they bring in little to no grant money. They are often subject to the resource-allocation priorities of a university’s leadership at any given time, making them incredibly vulnerable to neglect or divestment.
But herbaria are key to biodiversity and humanity’s future. Earth is home to an estimated 2.5 million fungi and up to 500,000 types of plants (including bryophytes and algae), and we have yet to scientifically describe and name all of them. In the past three years, scientists have named more than 8,600 plants as new to science, according to Britain’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Yet even as scientists race to identify, describe and name species, we are losing many at an alarming pace. Indeed, Kew estimated that 3 in 4 species yet to be described are likely at risk of extinction. Moreover, 45 percent of all flowering plants are likely at risk of extinction largely because of human-created pressures, such as conversion of lands for agriculture and urban expansion, resource extraction, and climate change.
To save biodiversity, we must first document and monitor it to identify what drives species loss and then develop solutions. My work as an ethnobotanist leads me to biodiversity hotspots — areas that are biologically rich and deeply threatened — across the globe, where I work with my team and local collaborators and communities to collect plants in the wild, pressing them between sheets of newspaper and drying them so they can be deposited into an herbarium and studied. This is a tried and true process based on techniques developed by Italian physician-botanist Luca Ghini (1490-1556) and later used by the father of modern taxonomy, Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), and evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin (1809-1882). For centuries, naturalists have collected specimens — foods such as black pepper and medicines like fever tree bark — that we now take for granted.
When properly cared for, herbarium specimens can last centuries; the oldest extant herbarium is held in Rome, prepared nearly 500 years ago. Such specimens provide an incredibly important window into human history, illuminating which plants grew where in the world and when. For example, it is only thanks to herbarium specimens collected in the 1550s from a garden in Pisa, Italy, that we know what the first European-grown tomatoes — tomatoes were originally sourced from Mexico — looked like and what their genetic makeup was.
Advanced tools in genetics and chemistry are opening new ways to learn more about past foods, medicines and wild plants and might hold clues for saving future crops from pests, disease and a changing climate. And imagine what scientists 500 years in the future could do with the specimens we collect and save today. Undoubtedly, many of the species I’ve collected and curated will no longer exist in nature in the next century, let alone in another five hundred years. These dried fragments of plant tissue might be all that is left for future generations to ponder.
Over the past dozen years, I’ve been thrilled to see the Emory herbarium grow and once again become a vital resource for botanical research and education on campus. In addition to repairing and annotating specimens, we also brought the collection into the modern era through a digitization program, sharing images and collection data through the Southeast Regional Network of Expertise and Collections, making our herbarium accessible to students and scholars worldwide.
This year, the Emory herbarium celebrates its 75th anniversary. But will it survive another 75 years? The diminishing value placed on university herbaria and taxonomic science threatens the very infrastructure necessary for effective environmental stewardship and the protection of endangered species. Herbaria are not just repositories of historical data; they are the bedrock of environmental conservation efforts. They are nature’s last hope in the battle against biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse. We must do all we can to save them.