Media release

From: Springer Nature

Plants: The legacy of colonial history in plant collections (N&V)

The plant diversity of botanical collections is found to be higher in countries that have formerly held colonizing power and lower in countries that were formerly colonized, but the opposite pattern is observed in natural environments, according to a paper in Nature Human Behaviour. The findings suggest that the legacy of colonialism is still present in the research and management of plant specimens. 

Plant collections, known as herbaria, are central to botanical research and contribute essential data on climate change, pollution and invasive species. The history of herbaria is known to be closely tied to colonialism, as many collections began with colonial-era expeditions to extract botanical specimens and knowledge. Although this history is understood to have resulted in herbaria in the Global North holding many specimens from the Global South, this effect had not yet been quantified.  

To quantify and compare plant diversity in nature and herbaria, Daniel Park and colleagues analysed over 85 million specimen records from online databases and surveyed 92 herbaria in 39 countries. They found that herbaria in nations with histories of colonial power house more specimens and species than those in formerly colonized nations throughout Africa, Asia and South America. However, the natural environments of these formerly colonized nations were found to have higher plant biodiversity than former colonizing nations. Additionally, the authors note that a disproportionately large amount of plant specimens from across the globe are currently housed in European countries and the USA in the world’s 10 largest herbaria, which hold over 65 million specimens in total. 

The authors note that these data may be biased towards institutions and countries with the capacity and resources to measure plant diversity, and these disparities could therefore be even greater than the current findings suggest. They emphasize the need to address how the legacy of colonialism shapes plant collections across continents.