The conservation of biodiversity is one of the world's most pressing and complex issues. Society needs information about the identities, characteristics, and requirements of plants and the places where they live (ecosystems) in order to wisely manage the vital natural resources we often take for granted.
The herbarium collections are a veritable databank of plant life of the world. BRIT provides a comprehensive record of the diversity and distribution of the plants of this region as well as for other regions of the world. That information is accessible to scientists, environmentalists, teachers, students, land owners, the business community, and the general public. Also see Research and Herbaria.
Systematists/Taxonomists
This group of scientists studies the evolution, classification, and nomenclature of plants. Since all human knowledge of plants is predicated on the identity and relationship a plant has to other plants, taxonomy is a science upon which all other scientific fields depend. Systematists and Taxonomists use a herbarium to identify the variation within a species, to provide data for revisions and monographs of plant groups, and to document to biodiversity of an area.
Other Botanists
Any scientist who studies ecology, ethnobotany, pharmacology, anatomy, physiology, genetics, or biogeography can use a herbarium. For example, a herbarium specimen can provide an alert to the existence of a new species (or the presence of a new invasive weed), a record of a unique plant-use among an indigenous culture, material for DNA analysis, tissue for microscopic studies and chemical analysis, or information on species distribution and change within a landscape.
Students
All ages of students use herbaria for class projects and research involving plants.
Forensic Scientists and Law Enforcement Agencies
Herbaria provide samples for the identification of plants that may be significant in criminal investigations.
Poison Control Boards
Herbarium specimens can be used to identify poisonous plants accidentally consumed by humans, pets, or livestock.
Horticulturists/Gardeners/Ranchers
These people use herbaria to identify the plants that grow on their property.
Historians
A herbarium provides information about expeditions and explorers, botanists and their work and travels.
Conservation Groups
Any herbarium is a bank of rare and endangered species. Collection data on a specimen can serve as a means of relocating rare, threatened, endangered, or extirpated species. Herbaria allow documentation of what plants grew in a certain geographic area over time and allow an estimation of impact human settlement has had on species distributions.
