Housed worldwide, mostly in museums and herbaria, is a vast collection of biological
specimens developed over centuries. These biological collections, and associated …

Widespread specimen digitization has greatly enhanced the use of herbarium data in
scientific research. Publications using herbarium data have increased exponentially over the …

Global change has become a central focus of modern biology. Yet, our knowledge of how
anthropogenic drivers affect biodiversity and natural resources is limited by a lack of …

Aim Massive digitalization of natural history collections is now leading to a steep
accumulation of publicly available species distribution data. However, taxonomic errors and …

The fundamental properties of organisms—what they are, how and where they live, and the
biotic and abiotic interactions that link them to communities and ecosystems—are the …

New DNA sequencing technologies are allowing researchers to explore the genomes of the
millions of natural history specimens collected prior to the molecular era. Yet, we know little …

Patterns of ecotypic variation constitute some of the few 'rules' known to modern biology.
Here, we examine several well‐known ecogeographical rules, especially those pertaining to …

Through their unique combination of specimen collections, scientific and public education
expertise, and wide audience reach and trust, natural history museums (NHMs) are obvious …

The ever-increasing human footprint even in very remote places on Earth has inspired
efforts to document biodiversity vigorously in case organisms go extinct. However, the data …

Many ecologists have lamented the demise of natural history and have attributed this
decline to a misguided view that natural history is outdated and unscientific. Although there …