Digitization Helps Protect Botanists’ Best Time Machine in the Santa Monica Mountains

Botanists have been collecting and pressing samples of plants they find in the wild for nearly 200 years. Around the world, there are numerous institutions with vast herbarium collections of plant pressings that are more valuable today than when they were collected! Plant specimens collected in the past are of great value because they can tell modern-day scientists a lot about past environments and conditions. They can help paint a picture of what species were present, what their genetic structure was at that time, and they can even inform us about the climate at the time of collection. It’s the closest thing to a time machine a botanist will find!

Plant specimens collected in the past are of great value because they can tell modern-day scientists a lot about past environments and conditions.

NPS / Michael Ready

However, caring for these collections is both complex and expensive. Climate-controlled rooms are required to keep the physical material from breaking down and care must be taken to keep insects and moisture out of the collections. Unfortunately, in southern California, we also have to consider the threat of wildfire to collections. The 2018 Woolsey Fire scorched nearly 100,000 acres of land (including more than 21,000 acres of National Park Service-managed property) and caused extensive damage to our native ecosystems. The fire also caused significant damage to physical structures in the Santa Monica Mountains, including a structure that contained numerous historic artifacts.

Given the ecological value of herbarium specimens and the cost required to protect them, more and more institutions have begun to digitize their collections. Using high-resolution photographic equipment purchased by the Southern California Research Learning Center, National Park Service staff and partners are capturing images of every individual plant specimen that is currently in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area’s collection, plus every new specimen that arrives. These images are then submitted to the California Consortium of Herbaria, where researchers from around the world can access them for their own study now and well into the future.While the physical specimens retain some of the values that images can’t replace (e.g. genetic material), should another catastrophic event ever damage the existing herbarium, we can at least be assured that the digital record is safe from harm.

---

A Publication of the Southern California Research Learning Center

The Southern California Research Learning Center is one of 18 Research Learning Centers across the country. These centers strive to increase scientific activity in the national park system, to communicate research that supports stewardship and to make science part of the visitor experience. By working with a variety of partners, we aim to support science-based decision-making, increase science literacy and promote a conservation ethic within the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, Channel Islands National Park, and Cabrillo National Monument.