My undergrad training was very ecology-oriented (and zoological.) I therefore never visited a herbarium during my undergrad training, and never realized what its purpose was. Having now spent several months going through herbarium records - and databases of such records - I have realized what a wealth of information is stored in these collections. Not only are plant specimens conserved here, where they can always be revisited, but there is a wealth of information on herbarium labels that can be used for a variety of purposes. Indeed, Pyke et al. (2010) have shown that herbarium specimens have increasingly been utilized by the scientific community in recent years, and new uses for them are continuously being found. I am becoming an ever greater advocate of conserving these institutions, their data, and the continued existence of the field of taxonomy, which is essential for the basic purpose of describing and identifying species, the biological entities most frequently used in describing diversity and making conservation recommendations.
Pyke, G.H. & Ehrlich, P.R. (2010) Biological collections and ecological/environmental research: A review, some observations and a look to the future. Biological Reviews, 85, 247-266
Posts
