Digitisation of herbarium specimens to the benefit of research: An African perspective focusing on South Africa and Western Indian Ocean Island states

作者：Ronell R. Klopper, H. Steyn, Cláudia Baider, Benny Bytebier, Anisha Dayaram, F. B. Vincent Florens, Nivohenintsoa Rakotonirina, D. Raimondo, Marc S.M. Sosef, M. Marianne le Roux · 发表于：Plants People Planet · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1002/ppp3.70117 · 被引用次数：1 · 研究领域：Species Distribution and Climate Change、Genetics, Bioinformatics, and Biomedical Research、Botanical Studies and Applications

Societal Impact Statement Botanical exploration, discovery and conservation rely heavily on access to herbarium collections. Recently, digital access to label information, including georeferenced locality data, and images of herbarium specimens available online, have greatly increased usage of herbarium specimen data. However, access to online resources from African herbaria is lacking, despite being critical for promoting local and global research and conservation. Here, we explore digital access to herbarium collections from South Africa and Western Indian Ocean Islands and call on all African countries to unite and collectively find innovative ways of digitising and mobilising data from our botanical collections. Some excellent examples of such endeavours already exist. Summary Herbarium digitisation—transcribing and imaging specimens—is revolutionising biodiversity research by accelerating the description of species new to science, enhancing conservation assessments, and informing policy to address global challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss. Digitised herbarium data underpin critical research, such as alpha taxonomy, IUCN Red List assessments and mapping ecosystems. The historical legacy of botanical exploration has left many African specimens in herbaria located in the Northern Hemisphere, where large digitisation efforts are making data from these collections available online. A brief overview of some of these initiatives, as well as the history of digi...