The Uses of Herbaria in Botanical Research. A Review Based on Evidence From Argentina.

Alicia López,Agostina B. Sassone

doi:10.3389/fpls.2019.01363

Abstract

Botanists, a section of the broad universe of researchers in Biology, are intensive users of herbaria. Presumably, all botanists use herbaria, with greater or lesser frequency and intensity, in the development of their research. In this article, we will try to prove this statement. For this purpose, an institutional history of Botany and herbaria in Argentina is presented. This study will also show that there are other fields of knowledge in which the herbarium has a role as an input, or data source, for research (e.g. agronomy, ethnobotany, medicine). On the other hand, it will be demonstrated that, in addition to the uses of the herbarium in basic science, this institution has a crucial role in the knowledge and preservation of biodiversity, and in the improvement of species for commercial use.

Highlights

Overview: The Historical Development of Herbaria in ArgentinaAcross the globe, there are 3,400 herbaria store botanical collections which are an invaluable record of the world’s biodiversity (Krishtalka et al, 2016; Thiers, 2019)
The focus is on active researchers—researchers being defined in a broad sense as those who have published at least 5 academic papers during the analyzed period—affiliated to an Argentine institution, and that mention in their public CV at least one of the following keywords: botanist, Botany, herbaria, herbarium, herbarium collections, plant science, systematics, taxonomist, taxonomy, type specimen
Information from Scopus was extracted from articles, reviews, articles in press, book chapters, letters and notes with the following combination of keywords that could be present in the title, abstract or keywords: either botany or plant science, plus herbaria, herbarium, collections, nomenclature, taxonomy and/or type specimen

Summary

Introduction

Overview: The Historical Development of Herbaria in ArgentinaAcross the globe, there are 3,400 herbaria store botanical collections which are an invaluable record of the world’s biodiversity (Krishtalka et al, 2016; Thiers, 2019). Considering only the herbaria included in official institutions, the first one was the BA Herbarium, dated in 1854 as part of the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences, followed by CORD in 1870 and LP in 1887.

Results

Conclusion