我国植物模式标本的馆藏量

植物标本是物种存在的永久凭证,模式标本在保障命名体系稳定中有不可替代的作用。标本馆藏量和模式标本数量反映一个国家或地区的历史积累。作者通过对比分析,发现我国的标本馆藏量远低于国际平均水平,模式标本馆藏量也相对较少,历史积累不足。在数字化本土馆藏模式标本基础上,标本数字化平台项目应将国外馆藏的中国植物种类的模式标本"引渡"回国。今后我国植物分类学研究者的重要工作之一是加强空白地区和国外标本采集,提高馆藏标本的代表性。     

Biological collections in an ever changing world: Herbaria as tools for biogeographical and environmental studies

Plant specimens stored in herbaria are being used as never before to document the impacts of global change on humans and nature. However, published statistics on the use of biological collections are rare, and ecologists lack quantitative data demonstrating the relevance to science of herbarium specimens. I found 382 studies with original data that used herbarium specimens to document biogeographical patterns or environmental changes. Most studies are less than 10 years old, and only 1.4% of the herbarium specimens worldwide have been used to answer biogeographical or environmental questions. The vast majority (82%) of papers dealt with vascular plants, but some studies also used bryophytes, lichens, seaweeds and fungi. The herbarium specimens were collected from all continents, but most of the studies used specimens from North America (40% of studies) or Europe (28%). Many types of researches (conservation, plant disease, plant invasion, pollution, etc.) can be conducted using herbarium specimens. Climate change, and especially phenological reconstructions, are clearly emerging research topics. By group, small herbaria (<100,000 specimens) are consulted as often as very large herbaria (>1,000,000 specimens) for biogeographical and environmental research, but in most cases, only large facilities provide specimens collected worldwide. The median number of specimens per study in papers using computerized collections (15,295) was much higher than for papers that did not include electronic data (226). The use of molecular analyses to investigate herbarium specimens is still relatively unexplored, at least from biogeographical and environmental points of view. Combined with recently developed procedures to correct biases, herbarium specimens might provide in the near future exciting additional spatio-temporal insights that are currently unimaginable.     

Herbarium records in Arctic dwarf shrub dendrochronology: Methodological approach and perspectives

Our work aims to investigate whether herbaria resources can be used for the extension of Arctic dwarf shrub chronologies. The current use of herbaria reaches far beyond their initially aims; among the new applications, phenology observations and conservation biology can be mentioned. However, to this date, no studies on the use of herbarium specimens for dendrochronological research have been published. Examples of perennial plants from herbarium sheets that could potentially be used for such studies are dwarf shrubs, samples of which often consist of whole specimens, including the root system, the root collar and branches. Here, we present a protocol for the selection and processing of historical material. Based on the collections from Kew and Copenhagen, which are among of the largest herbaria with Arctic plants, a database of 25 areas from the Atlantic sector of the Arctic was created. Material from the following most common species was collected: grey willow (Salix glauca L.), polar willow (Salix polaris Wahlenb.), dwarf willow (Salix herbacea L.), net-leaved willow (Salix reticulata L.), arctic willow (Salix arctica Pall.), mountain avens (Dryas octopetala L.), dwarf birch (Betula nana L.). We present the preliminary results of a case study using historical samples of Salix arctica from the Thule (Qaanaaq) area, NW Greenland. Dwarf shrubs can commonly reach the age of 80–100 years or beyond, while herbaria resources may allow the extension of such series over the last centuries. Therewith, these resources may provide an excellent proxy data source on the changing natural environment beyond the northern and upper tree limits, where well-replicated proxy time-series remain sparse.     

The US Virtual Herbarium: working with individual herbaria to build a national resource

The goal of the US Virtual Herbarium (USVH) project is to digitize (database, image, georeference) all specimens in all US herbaria, enabling them to be made available through a single portal. Herbaria house specimens of plants, fungi, and algae, so USVH will offer a rich portrait of biodiversity in the US and in the other countries represented in US herbaria. Equally importantly, working towards this goal will engage people with herbaria and the organisms they house, expanding their appreciation of both the power of biodiversity informatics and the demands that it places on data providers while developing improved communication among those working in and with herbaria. The project is not funded but has strong support among those working in herbaria. It works through regional herbarium networks, some of which existed prior to the USVH project, while others are still in gestation. It differs from most digitization projects in its emphasis on helping those involved with herbaria become part of a national enterprise, an aspect that is seen as critical to creating the resources needed to develop and sustain the project. In this paper, we present some of the lessons we have learned and the difficulties we have encountered during the first few years of the project.     

A brief history of the Wellesley College Herbarium (WELC) and a list of its type specimens of vascular plants now deposited at The New York Botanical Garden Herbarium (NY)

The majority of the Wellesley College Herbarium (62, 193 specimens) has been intercalated into The New York Botanical Garden Herbarium (NY). Duplicated collections were distributed to other herbaria. Most specimens has been collected between 1850 and 1940. A brief history of the Wellesley Herbarium is given, and lists of the vascular plant type specimens and of some notable collectors of vascular plants are appended.     

The phenology of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Rubus fruticosus</Emphasis> in Ireland: herbarium specimens provide evidence for the response of phenophases to temperature,with implications for climate warming

To date, phenological research has provided evidence that climate warming is impacting both animals and plants, evidenced by the altered timing of phenophases. Much of the evidence supporting these findings has been provided by analysis of historic records and present-day fieldwork; herbaria have been identified recently as an alternative source of phenological data. Here, we used Rubus specimens to evaluate herbaria as potential sources of phenological data for use in climate change research and to develop the methodology for using herbaria specimens in phenological studies. Data relevant to phenology (collection date) were recorded from the information cards of over 600 herbarium specimens at Ireland’s National Herbarium in Dublin. Each specimen was assigned a score (0–5) corresponding to its phenophase. Temperature data for the study period (1852 – 2007) were obtained from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU); relationships between temperature and the dates of first flower, full flower, first fruit and full fruit were assessed using weighted linear regression. Of the five species of Rubus examined in this study, specimens of only one (R. fruticosus) were sufficiently abundant to yield statistically significant relationships with temperature. The results revealed a trend towards earlier dates of first flower, full flower and first fruit phenophases with increasing temperature. Through its multi-phenophase approach, this research serves to extend the most recent work—which validated the use of herbaria through use of a single phenophase—to confirm herbarium-based research as a robust methodology for use in future phenological studies.     

Herbaria and Botanic Gardens as the memory of biological diversity

Abstract

In order to fully understand biological diversity of plants, it is necessary to study their genetic and metabolic-functional aspects. However, it is also necessary to identify with utmost precision the kind of organism under study, to allow the reproducibility of experimental results. Within this context, a major role is played by Botanic Gardens and Herbaria, where the investigated specimens are cultivated and kept as exsiccata, respectively, as a memory of plant diversity. After pointing out the role of herbaria in reference to the typologic concept of species, the author mentions the recent advances made possible by PCR techniques and RAPD markers in the analysis of the species and of the evolutionary relationships amongst allied taxa. Systematics, as study of diversity, is a modern and fascinating science.     

中国被子植物2新记录种——蒙古水毛茛和山地柳叶菜

基于对国内外大量文献研究以及对国内外多个标本馆的植物标本的广泛检视,同时针对2个物种开展了分子系统发生分析。根据形态学与分子系统学证据,报道了发现于新疆阿勒泰地区的2种中国新分布记录被子植物,分别为蒙古水毛茛[Ranunculus mongolicus(Krylov)Serg.]和山地柳叶菜(Epilobium montanum L.)。凭证标本保存于北京林业大学标本馆(BJFC)、中国科学院植物研究所标本馆(PE)和中国科学院昆明植物研究所标本馆(KUN)。     

A deep learning-based approach for detecting plant organs from digitized herbarium specimen images

Herbarium specimens are excellent sources of botanical information to facilitate understanding and monitoring the evolution of plants and their effects on global climate change. Globally, many herbaria have undertaken digitization projects of herbarium specimens to preserve them and make them accessible in online repositories to botanists and ecologists. Automated detection of plant organs such as plant leaves, buds, flowers, and fruits on the digitized herbarium specimen images provides valuable information in various scientific contexts. We developed a deep learning approach based on the refined YOLO-V3 approach to detect plant organs within the digitized herbarium specimen images effectively. The proposed approach combines ResNet and DenseNet architectures to improve feature extraction capabilities. Also, a new scale of feature map is added to the existing scales to address the problem of YOLO-V3's low performance in detecting small plant organs. The experimental results demonstrate that our proposed approach can detect organs of different sizes within different specimens, where the precision and recall reached 94.2% and 95.5%, respectively.     

Bryophytes and lichens in 16th-century herbaria

The diversity of bryophyte and lichen collections in 9 of the oldest preserved herbaria (dating from ca 1542 to 1577) was compared, including the first reports of bryophytes and lichens from the ‘En Tibi’ herbarium (possibly 1542–1544) and the herbarium of Leonhard Rauwolf (1560–1563). Bryophytes and lichens formed only a minority in each herbarium compared to the numbers of vascular plant specimens; numbers ranged from representatives of 21 genera in the herbarium of Ulisse Aldrovandi to the single genus Conocephalum in the Rauwolf herbarium. The focus was on large, handsome species of bryophytes and macrolichens, apart from small amounts of additional species collected as ‘by-catch’ in mixed collections. All herbaria together included 34 genera of bryophytes (36 species and 10 specimens identified to genus level) and 13 genera of lichens (24 species and 4 specimens identified to genus level). The diversity of mosses was higher than that of liverworts, and pleurocarpous mosses were more diverse than acrocarpous mosses. The collectors probably aimed at selecting material that was either characteristic of the vegetation in the respective areas of collecting or used for certain purposes (or both). The former hypothesis is supported by the small overlap in taxonomic diversity between the herbaria, and the latter by the fact that several moss, liverwort, and lichen genera are included whose traditional uses are well documented.     

Naturalization of exotic plant species in north‐eastern North America: trends and detection capacity

Aim To reconstruct historical naturalization trends of exotic vascular plants in Quebec and Massachusetts, two regions that experienced fluctuations in their herbarium specimen collection efforts. We hypothesized that the observed trends are linked to the collection effort and that they differ according to the motive for plant introduction. Methods A checklist of naturalized exotic plant taxa for Quebec, including oldest proof of naturalization and motive for introduction, was built from herbaria, journals, dissertations, theses, bulletins, websites and unpublished records. For Massachusetts, we used the checklist of Sorrie (2005; Rhodora, 107 , 284–329). The collection effort was estimated from a pool of species with specimens from the five largest Quebec herbaria and from the Harvard University Herbarium. Results Naturalization trends of exotic plants in Quebec are similar to those observed in Massachusetts. A large part of the plants naturalized in the 17th, 18th or 19th centuries, with very little naturalization during the last 30–90 years. In general, there is a significant statistical link between herbarium specimen collection effort and the discovery of new naturalized plant taxa. Very few utilitarian plants naturalized in either region during the 20th century. In Quebec, a high number of ornamental plants naturalized during the last 100 years. Main conclusions The link between herbarium specimen collection effort and the discovery of new naturalized plants is real, although not as straightforward as it seems. Our analysis suggests that at least part of the decline in the number of new naturalized exotic plants observed in Quebec and Massachusetts during the last 30–90 years is a direct consequence of the low interest for traditional floristic studies. However, the possibility of a real decline cannot be ruled out. We nevertheless provide here one of the first pieces of evidence of the potential consequences of the decline of local plant collection for environmental management and especially for early detection systems of new invaders.     

Palm taxonomy in Brazilian Amazônia: The state of systematic collections in regional herbaria

Despite their economic and ecological importance, Amazonian palms have been largely neglected by contemporary taxonomists. The resulting confusion at the specific level is a serious impediment to research efforts by specialists in other fields. To assess the state of systematic collections presently available in Amazônia, we conducted a survey of the palm specimens in three Brazilian herbaria (MG, IAN and INPA). Twelve criteria were utilized to measure the quality of the specimens. We found that most of the 897 specimens are reasonably complete in a physical sense, but a large proportion lack crucial information on their labels. Curating facilities are in serious need of improvement, as is evident from the significant (26%) percentage of specimens found to be in an unreasonable state of preservation. A checklist of the 232 currently recognized palm species in Brazilian Amazônia shows that 145 (62.5%) are not represented by identified specimens, and that the representation which does exist lacks depth. To improve the quality and representativeness of collections in regional herbaria, we suggest procedures for collecting and storing palms as well as policies designed to intensify collecting efforts in Amazônia.     

Comparison of Herbarium Label Data and Published Medicinal Use: Herbaria as an Underutilized Source of Ethnobotanical Information

The use of herbarium specimens as vouchers to support ethnobotanical surveys is well established. However, herbaria may be underutilized resources for ethnobotanical research that depends on the analysis of large datasets compiled across multiple sites. Here, we compare two medicinal use datasets, one sourced from published papers and the other from online herbaria to determine whether herbarium and published data are comparable and to what extent herbarium specimens add new data and fill gaps in our knowledge of geographical extent of plant use. Using Brazilian legumes as a case study, we compiled 1400 use reports from 105 publications and 15 Brazilian herbaria. Of the 319 species in 107 genera with cited medicinal uses, 165 (51%) were recorded only in the literature and 55 (17%) only on herbarium labels. Mode of application, plant part used, or therapeutic use was less often documented by herbarium specimen labels (17% with information) than publications (70%). However, medicinal use of 21 of the 128 species known from only one report in the literature was substantiated from independently collected herbarium specimens, and 58 new therapeutic applications, 25 new plant parts, and 16 new modes of application were added for species known from the literature. Thus, when literature reports are few or information-poor, herbarium data can both validate and augment these reports. Herbarium data can also provide insights into the history and geographical extent of use that are not captured in publications.     

The urban vascular flora of Palermo (Sicily,Italy)

Abstract

This article presents a comprehensive inventory of the urban vascular flora of the town of Palermo. The data were gathered from extensive field collections, from specimens kept in different herbaria, and publications of the last 30?years. The floristic catalogue includes all the vascular plants that occur spontaneously within the urban area. Thirteen taxa are endemic to Sicily and one of these, Clinopodium raimondoi, is exclusive to Palermo’s area. The inventory comprises 1052 taxa belonging to 119 families and 225 genera, and contains 170 taxa non-native to the Italian flora.     

中国高等植物数字化标本分析

传统上馆藏标本,主要用于植物分类学、植物资源学的研究。数字标本的出现将标本的使用拓展到从研究生物多样性时间空间分布到生态学和进化学理论、生物多样性保护、农业和人类健康等广泛领域。截至目前,从互联网上获取的采自中国的植物标本数量已有1 200多万份。该文通过整理和分析这些数据以了解中国植物标本的数字化精度、采集时间和采集地区规律以及采集空缺等状况。结果表明:中国标本采集形成了4个高峰,即20世纪30年代、60年代、80年代和21世纪初,中国植物标本采集和研究工作主要在20世纪50年代后由中国学者完成。标本采集地区覆盖度在省级较好,县级标本采集则很不平衡; 标本采集类群在科属层面覆盖率高,但近五分之一的物种采集不足; 标本的采集量既与植物分布幅度相关,也与采集地区的知名度、所获科研项目及采集者偏好有关。未来中国植物标本数字化方向应该在继续挖掘馆藏标本的同时,一方面开展对现有数字化标本信息再审核及补充,并加强与欧美大馆的信息共享以获取早期历史标本信息; 另一方面应用数字化标本信息分析结果,指导境内标本的精准采集,包括采集薄弱/空白地区、采集薄弱/空白属种的采集,以进一步增强实体标本馆能力,提高数字化标本质量,为进一步完善植物标本数字化和精准化采集提供依据,更好地服务科学和社会的发展。     

How FAIR are plant sciences in the twenty-first century? The pressing need for reproducibility in plant ecology and evolution

The need for open, reproducible science is of growing concern in the twenty-first century, with multiple initiatives like the widely supported FAIR principles advocating for data to be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. Plant ecological and evolutionary studies are not exempt from the need to ensure that the data upon which their findings are based are accessible and allow for replication in accordance with the FAIR principles. However, it is common that the collection and curation of herbarium specimens, a foundational aspect of studies involving plants, is neglected by authors. Without publicly available specimens, huge numbers of studies that rely on the field identification of plants are fundamentally not reproducible. We argue that the collection and public availability of herbarium specimens is not only good botanical practice but is also fundamental in ensuring that plant ecological and evolutionary studies are replicable, and thus scientifically sound. Data repositories that adhere to the FAIR principles must make sure that the original data are traceable to and re-examinable at their empirical source. In order to secure replicability, and adherence to the FAIR principles, substantial changes need to be brought about to restore the practice of collecting and curating specimens, to educate students of their importance, and to properly fund the herbaria which house them.     

Sources of information about botanic gardens and herbaria

Botany is the study of living plants in the garden and the wild and of dead plants in the herbarium and laboratory. The value of a botanic garden for teaching purposes became evident in the 16th century with the founding between 1543 and 1600 of botanic gardens at Pisa, Padua, Florence, Bologna, Leyden, Leipzig, Paris, Montpellier and Heidelberg: indeed most of the major European botanic gardens were founded during this and the next two centuries. Associated with the study of living plants in botanic gardens was the invention of the herbarium by Luca Ghini (1490–1556) and the subsequent making of many private herbaria, out of which have developed the large institutional herbaria, mostly in the 18th and 19th centuries. The continuous enrichment of European gardens by the introduction of new plants resulting from European exploration and colonization created many problems of classification and naming, and so led to the development of taxonomic methods and the adoption of consistent binomial nomenclature for species, following Linnaeus, during the 18th century. The fashion for collecting in the 17th and 18th centuries resulted in the amassing of big private collections which later became the basis of institutional collections. The increase of such public collections by making available material for study from all over the world has, in turn, increased the publications relating to this. Thus the botanic garden and the herbarium, with their associated libraries, have become complementary repositories of botanical information invaluable to the taxonomist, the plant geographer, the economic botanist and the student of evolution. Some useful publications relating to botanic gardens, herbaria and botanical and horticultural collectors are listed.     

贵州省被子植物新记录

报道贵州省2个新记录属——假婆婆纳属(Stimpsonia Wright ex A. Gray)和山涧草属(Chikusichloa Koidz.),以及3个新记录种假婆婆纳(Stimpsonia chamaedryoides Wright ex A. Gray)、山涧草(Chikusichloa aquatica Koidz.)和广东西番莲(Passiflora kwangtungensis Merr.)。三种植物均发现于贵州黎平太平山州级自然保护区,凭证标本存放于中国科学院华南植物园标本馆(IBSC)和中国科学院植物研究所标本馆(PE)。文中描述3种植物的主要特征,并讨论了新发现的广东西番莲叶片变异情况。     

Century‐long stomatal density record of the nitrophyte,Rubus spectabilis L., from the Pacific Northwest indicates no effect of changing atmospheric carbon dioxide but a strong response to nutrient subsidy

Triangle Island on Canada''s Pacific coast is home to a large, globally important seabird breeding colony. The shrub Salmonberry Rubus spectabilis and tussock‐forming Tufted Hairgrass Deschampsia cespitosa together form ~70% of vegetation coverage and contain the vast majority (~90%) of seabird nesting burrows. Salmonberry has in recent decades greatly expanded its coverage, while that of Tufted Hairgrass has receded. Seabirds prefer not to burrow under Salmonberry, making its ongoing expansion a potential conservation issue. We investigated three hypotheses proposed to explain Salmonberry''s expansion (climate change, biopedturbation, and nutrient input), using comparisons of stomatal density of Salmonberry leaves sampled from Triangle Island, other seabird colonies, other coastal locations, and from historical specimens in herbaria. Stomatal density helps regulate photosynthetic gain and control water loss, and responds to light, nutrient, carbon dioxide, and water availability. Differing patterns of stomatal density are expected among sample locations depending on which of the hypothesized factors most strongly affects Salmonberry''s performance. Our data are most consistent with the nutrient input hypothesis. We discuss possible reasons why Salmonberry has expanded so recently, even though Triangle has been a large seabird colony for at least a century and likely much longer.