Worldwide natural history collections contain more than three billion specimens assembled over hundreds of years, an irreplaceable physical record of life. Though there is bias inherent in their composition — from a disproportionate number of roadside plants to the dismissal of traditional ecological knowledge that could have expanded our understanding far sooner — we rely on them to gather data on the past, decipher the present, and forecast the future of the changing Earth. With modern technology, they can answer questions that their original collectors never dreamed of. Who knows what further mysteries they hold? Below, scientists explain their efforts to unravel some of those mysteries.
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Prof. Tanisha Williams, University of Georgia
I used a century's worth of herbarium records to assess how the genus Pelargonium in the geranium family is responding to a 3°C temperature increase over the past 100 years in the Cape Floristic Region, South Africa. My findings showed that Pelargonium species are advancing their flowering by almost two weeks. That shift could be detrimental to species abundance and persistence if Pelargonium’s pollinators are not also emerging earlier. Research is ongoing on pollinator collections from the past century to understand timing of emergence and if this coincides with Pelargonium flowering shifts. Left: Dr. Williams shows a specimen to Congressman Joe Courtney.
Several of these scientists spoke at the University of Michigan's virtual Early Career Scientists Symposium of 2021, Natural History Collections: Drivers of Innovation.
