Specimen Collection and Preparation for a Changing Flora

Abstract

Efforts in recent years to digitize herbarium collections (i.e., image, capture label data, and georeference) have allowed for easier access to plant specimen data, facilitating study of the dynamic nature of our world’s flora (Hedrick et al. 2020). In the United States, such studies are increasingly important in light of urbanization and associated habitat destruction, changes in land use, introduction of nonnative species, and climate change. Changes in the flora have economic as well as ecological effects, since habitat loss can affect water quality, wildlife populations, and other landscape attributes important in recreation and tourism (e.g., hiking, fishing). Documenting the flora provides an important tool for understanding historic trends, and those historic “snapshots” of the flora over time can be used in future projects such as habitat mitigation and species restoration. New, well-prepared herbarium specimens, along with thorough collection data, will be valuable additions in the future, providing modern records of distribution and phenology, as well as verifiable records of rare and nonnative species. Traditionally, herbarium specimens have been used in systematics research as well as studies of floristic diversity and biogeography. Specimen data have also been used in making historical comparisons related to ecological succession and human effects such as habitat destruction and climate change (Lang et al. 2018). Assessing changes in phenology, diversity, and distribution over time, tracking introduced and invasive species, and monitoring the decline of rare or sensitive species are common themes in studies making use of herbarium specimens today (Dolan et al. 2011; Everill et al. 2014; Loarie et al. 2008; Primack and Miller-Rushing 2012; Willis et al. 2017). More recently, herbaria have been used to track correlations among taxonomic groups, such as pollinator networks (Mathiasson and Rehan 2020) and mycorrhizal associations (Heberling and Burke 2019). As well, floristics is increasingly being merged into species distribution modeling as a way to use data to identify potential habitat and predict future distributions (Loarie et al. 2008; Wershow and DeChaine 2018), and into spatial phylogenetics, an evolutionary approach to the assessment of biodiversity and endemism (Mishler et al. 2020; Thornhill et al. 2016). Digitization advancements have also paved the way for new initiatives such as the Extended Specimen Network (Lendemer et al. 2020). This concept recognizes that herbarium specimens may be analyzed in multiple ways, creating a suite of interconnected