Speaker abstracts & biographies - State of the World's Plants & Fungi Symposium
Find out more about the world-leading experts taking to the stage at the State of the World's Plants and Fungi Symposium 2026.
View abstracts and biographies for each day of the 2026 SOTWPF Symposium
Day 1 - Monday 29 June
Biography – Anjali Goswami, Defra Chief Scientific Adviser and Director General for Science, Data and Analysis
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, UK
Professor Anjali Goswami was appointed Chief Scientific Adviser and Director General for Science, Data and Analysis at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 1 July 2025.
Anjali is a research leader in evolutionary biology and former Dean of Postgraduate Education at the Natural History Museum, London, an Honorary Professor in the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at University College London, and Past President of the Linnean Society of London.
She received her BSc from the University of Michigan in 1998 and her PhD from the University of Chicago in 2005, followed by a US National Science Foundation fellowship held at the Natural History Museum and a JRF at King’s College and lectureship in Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge. Her expertise is in vertebrate evolution and development, particularly in the emerging area of evolutionary phenomics. She and her group develop and apply new approaches to capturing the complex three-dimensional shapes of organisms in order to reconstruct the evolution of biodiversity. Her work spans insects to dinosaurs but her main interest is in the evolution of mammals. To fill key gaps in the palaeontological record, she has searched for fossils from Svalbard to Madagascar, with her primary fieldwork being based in South India.
She is the recipient of the Linnean Society Bicentenary Medal, the Zoological Society of London Scientific Medal, the Hind Rattan Award, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Robert L. Carroll Award, the Palaeontological Association President’s Medal, and the Humanists UK Darwin Day Medal. She was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society of London in 2024.
Leveraging herbarium digitisation for biodiversity gains: Success stories from Southern Africa
Le Roux, M.M.1,2, Braun, K.3, Bytebier, B.4, Dayaram, A.1,5, Klopper, R.R.1,6, Mtshali, H.1, Parbhoo, S.1, Steyn, H.M.1 & Van Der Colff, D.1
1 South African National Biodiversity Institute, South Africa; 2 University of Johannesburg, South Africa; 3 Independent Consultant, Eswatini; 4 University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa; 5 University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa; 6 University of Pretoria, South Africa
Digitisation unlocks the scientific potential of herbarium specimens, facilitating taxonomic research and species discovery, enhancing conservation assessments, ecosystem type definition, climate change research and evidence-based policy development. In Southern Africa, herbarium specimen digitisation began in the 1970s and continues through large initiatives. More recently, these include the Natural Science Collections Facility, which has supported complete imaging of the Bews Herbarium (NU), including several rescued orphaned collections, and the Selmar Schonland Herbarium (GRA), alongside a new imaging project at the National Herbarium (PRE).
Digitised data underpin a value chain of biodiversity outputs. They directly inform regional and national species checklists, taxonomic revisions and e-Floras. These taxonomic products, combined with digitised specimen and observational data, feed into Red List assessments that prioritise conservation actions. Programmes that monitor species of conservation concern (e.g. Custodians of Rare and Endangered Wildflowers) use specimen-based records to revisit historical localities, rediscover lost species and document threatened plants in critical habitats.
Digitised herbarium collections also support vegetation mapping and ecosystem classifications, which in turn enable ecosystem Red Listing. Together, species and ecosystem Red Lists help identify critical habitats, guide biodiversity stewardship programmes, expand protected areas, delineate Key Biodiversity Areas and ultimately shape policy. This talk will illustrate the tangible value chain of herbarium digitisation through examples and success stories from Southern Africa, including species rediscoveries and successful conservation interventions.
Lessons and perspectives for fungal data integration from microbial collections
Yurkov, A., Sandikci, Y., Gerken, J. & Reimer, L.C.
Leibniz Institute DSMZ – German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures, Germany
Over the past decade, the Leibniz Institute DSMZ – German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures has developed integrated digital infrastructures, including widely used resources for prokaryotes such as BacDive, TYGS and LPSN, which have evolved into globally integrated platforms incorporating distributed data. Building on this experience, we explore how existing infrastructures can address current gaps in mycology, improving the integration of available resources.
The first gap concerns the integration of isolation source metadata to link fungi known from cultures and specimens. We apply an approach previously developed in BacDive and demonstrate its potential for the exploration of habitat information for fungi, environmental sequence data and other organism groups, such as fungal hosts.
The second gap concerns the integration of fungal taxonomy, including different morphs often represented by heterogeneous reference material – cultures or specimens, with or without DNA data. This challenge is further amplified by the rapid increase in fungi discovered solely from sequence data. Altogether, this creates a highly fragmented taxonomic landscape, in which closely related fungi are distributed across distinct data repositories. We present an online demonstrator illustrating how such heterogeneous taxonomic data can be integrated to support future taxonomy and biodiversity assessments.
To simplify the exchange of research data, DSMZ is developing a unified data standard for microbial strains. Although originally designed for cultures, the standard incorporates data relevant to specimen collections and taxonomic literature.
This work highlights transferable strategies for advancing global digitisation efforts across biological collections.
Digitisation success stories from Australasia
McPherson, H.1, Birch, J.L.2, Brown, G.K.3, Cantrill, D.J.4, Crayn, D.M.5, Cuff, N. 6, James, S.A.7, Lehnebach, C.A.8, Lepschi, B.9, Vaughan, A.4, Waycott, M.10 & Summerell, B.1
1 National Herbarium of New South Wales, Botanic Gardens of Sydney, Australia; 2 University of Melbourne, Australia; 3 Queensland Herbarium, Australia; 4 Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, Australia; 5 Australian Tropical Herbarium, James Cook University, Australia; 6 Northern Territory Herbarium, Australia; 7 Western Australian Herbarium, Australia; 8 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, New Zealand; 9 Australian National Herbarium, Centre for Australian National Biodiversity Research, Australia; 10 State Herbarium of South Australia, Australia
The Australasian Virtual Herbarium (AVH) was established in 2001 as a collaboration across Australian and, more recently, New Zealand herbaria to digitise, aggregate and deliver specimen data. It now includes more than 7.7 million specimen records and approximately one million specimen images. These digital resources are foundational to biodiversity science in Australasia and globally. In the last 12 months, 743.5 million records have been downloaded for research, conservation management and education. The reach and impact of AVH data are evident in their extensive use for research, with over 18,000 citations to these data recorded by GBIF since 2020. Across the region, whilst maintaining data capture, we are shifting focus to imaging collections in our care.
With increasing access to high-resolution specimen images, AVH is opening Australasian collections to researchers worldwide and revealing new scientific, historical and cultural information. As our digitised resources grow, countless curatorial, research and management benefits are emerging.
Examples include using digital data to accelerate discovery and classification of floras; plan and execute herbarium collection management and relocations; develop new plant identification tools to support biosecurity; facilitate custodianship of cultural knowledge and provide opportunity for culturally informed specimen management; work with international institutions to repatriate data of Australasian collections; apply citizen science and AI to analyse morphological traits at continental and other scales and provide opportunities for diversified, multi-scaled collection models (e.g. digital sub-collections supporting virtual repatriation). Emerging AI applications will focus on accelerating data capture, improving data quality and knowledge repatriation to partner institutions and countries.
PollenGeo: Unlocking the full potential of palynology
Jaramillo, C.1, Punyasena, S.W.2, de Alba, D.1, Alzate, B.1, Alveo, R.1, Arcila, A.1, Bermudez, J.1, Bustos, J.1, Caballero-Rodriguez, D.1, Cardenas, K.1, Caro, D.1, Carvajal, F.1, Castañeda, M.1, Chaves, S.1, D’Apolito, C.3, Diaz-Jaramillo, A.1, Diaz, L.1, Garcia, S.1, Gomez, L.1, León-Carreño, M.1, Lopera, P.1, Lopez, M.A.1, Lopez, P.1, Mander, L.4, Martinez, J.1, Moreno, C.1, Moreno, E.1, Neyra, E.1, Orosco, B.1, Ortiz, J.1, Ossa, N.1, Ovalle, N.1, Ovalle, C.1, Patiño, L.1, Plata, A.1, Romero, I.1,5, Scudeiro, B.1, Sebaratnam, S.1, da Silva Caminha, S.A.F.6, Tavares, I.1, Tejada-Fajardo, A.1, Do Valle, V. 1 & Wood, T.1
1 Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama; 2 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA; 3 Universidade Federal do Acre, Brazil; 4 The Open University, UK; 5 Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, USA; 6 Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso, Brazil
The study of pollen and spores started more than a century ago and provides the fundamental basis to understand vegetation changes through time, date sedimentary rocks through biostratigraphy, and model plant evolution among many other applications. Since its origin, palynology has relied on the manual count of pollen and spores using a microscope. This is a process that requires a long time and years of training and produces data that are not fully reproducible. The advent of new robotic tools that can digitise complete microscope slides and the fast development of neural network algorithms have provided the timing for palynology to enter a new era in data generation and analysis. We are developing a training set of neotropical pollen and spores that contains 16,000 species to be used in a neural network that will assist in pollen counts and identification. The developments produced here could be applied to multiple research questions where pollen can be used from palaeoecology and palaeoclimate, oil, gas, and coal exploration, hydrogeology and allergology, to pollination biology and honey production.
Day 2 - Tuesday 30 June
Sòlarsteinn: A georeferencing artificial intelligence
Little, D.P.
The New York Botanical Garden, USA
Preserved natural history collections document the occurrence of species in space and time. Specimens and their associated metadata (time and location of collection) are the raw materials for a multitude of biodiversity analyses, including the delimitation of floristic regions, understanding current and historic geographic distributions of species, aiding in conservation assessment and planning, quantifying the impact of climate change and more. The products of these analyses are widely used by biologists, conservationists and policy makers. Prior to the advent of civilian GPS, geographic localities of natural history collections were usually described in words using landmarks, directions and distances – as a result, the vast majority of collections cannot be further analysed without manually divining geographic coordinates from locality descriptions. In order to make these collections useful for geographic analyses, Artificial Intelligence (AI) capable of accurately intuiting geographic coordinates from the text descriptions of collection localities has been designed and trained.
Next-generation specimen digitisation to capture reflectance spectra and functional traits from the world's herbaria
Cavender-Bares, J.1, White, D.1, Guzmán Q., J.A.1 & iHerbSpec Working Group2
1 Harvard University Herbaria, USA; 2 https://iherbspec.github.io
Plant electromagnetic spectra – the patterns of light reflected at different wavelengths from fresh or preserved plant specimens – provide critical information about plant chemical, structural and morphological variation. Herbaria represent a vast source of information relevant to plant taxon identification and functional traits using spectra. We have undertaken an international collaborative effort to advance the next-generation spectral digitisation from herbarium specimens through the International Herbarium Spectral Digitization (IHerbSpec) working group. The development of spectral-trait databases and predictive models enables translation of reflectance spectra to traits. Collecting and combining spectral data into a coordinated global database has the potential to generate new capacity to model plant traits, enabling connection with remote sensing and ecological and biosphere models, as well as reconstruction of trait evolution. Coordination is needed to avoid downstream problems in spectral data aggregation due to variation in data standards and technical specifications of the instruments, optical setups or measurement protocols. We have been working towards a globally collaborative programme to translate spectra from specimens to traits. Our efforts include the development of standardised protocols, metadata standards and best practices to generate replicable spectral reflectance data from plant specimens housed in herbaria around the world following community-defined standards.
Using herbaria and fungaria to provide insights into the metabolic biodiversity of plants and fungi
Felix, J.A.1, Arabacı, T.2, Damiani, T.3, Celep, F.4, Jan-Smith, E.1, Jasanský, A.1, Leitch, I.J.1, Loeuille, B.1 & Howes, M.R.1,5
1 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK; 2 Inönü University, Turkey; 3 Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic; 4 Kırıkkale University, Turkey; 5 King’s College London, UK
Modern metabolomic methods have transformed chemotaxonomic research; however, their application is often limited by the logistical challenges of broad-scale sampling. Preserved specimens, such as those in Kew’s Herbarium and Fungarium, may offer a solution to these constraints, yet concerns regarding metabolic degradation have historically limited their use in analytical chemistry research. Our research challenges this assumption and demonstrates that historical collections can be robust sources of metabolomic data to address a diversity of research questions in the fields of ecology, evolution and chemotaxonomy.
We evaluated the viability of using preserved specimens for large-scale metabolomics by screening 80 species of Achillea (Asteraceae) covering all taxonomic sections and spanning over a century of collection dates. To validate this approach, we compared metabolomic profiles of 11 species from both living and herbarium sources. Multivariate analysis revealed that while sample source (fresh vs. dried) influenced the chemical profile of samples, species identity remained the dominant driver of variation. Stable compounds including sesquiterpene lactones and flavonoids were well-preserved in specimens, some over 100 years old, whereas chemically labile N-alkylamides showed significant degradation.
We demonstrate how metabolomic data collected from preserved samples can be used to support phylogenetic research and identify species with unique chemical profiles. Finally, we discuss whether this methodology might be suitable for other dried collections including fungi preserved in fungaria, and how these methods could be used to answer ecological questions such as assessing how plants and fungi adapt to climate change.
Unlocking biodiversity knowledge with AI: Transforming specimen data into actionable ecosystem intelligence
Lee, S.H.1, Jee, K.L.Z.1, Liaw, J.Z.1, Ishrat, H.A.1,2, Chai, A.Y.H.2, Bonnet, P.3, Joly, A.4
1 Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus, Malaysia; 2 NEUON AI SDN. BHD., Malaysia; 3 CIRAD, France; 4 INRIA, France
Biodiversity research is increasingly data-rich, yet much of this information remains fragmented, inconsistent or underutilised. Specimen data including herbarium collections, field observations, environmental measurements, molecular records and remote sensing form the backbone of biodiversity knowledge, but their diversity in format, scale and quality limits their effective use in ecological research and conservation decision-making. This talk examines how artificial intelligence (AI) can unlock the latent value of specimen data and accelerate the generation of biodiversity knowledge.
Drawing on applied research and real-world deployments, I present AI-driven workflows that move biodiversity monitoring from manual, expert-dependent processes towards scalable and adaptive automation. Examples include organ-aware species recognition, multi-view and cross-domain learning, zero-shot classification, and semantic–visual data fusion, designed to cope with missing, noisy and heterogeneous data. Case studies demonstrate how integrating specimen data across domains such as field imagery, herbarium scans, environmental variables and satellite observations enables more accurate species identification, ecosystem characterisation and long-term biodiversity monitoring.
Beyond individual models, the talk highlights the importance of data understanding, interdisciplinary collaboration and user-centred system design in building sustainable AI solutions for biodiversity science. Emerging directions such as continuous data ingestion, citizen science and digital twins of natural ecosystems are discussed as pathways to real-time monitoring, predictive insights and improved conservation responses.
By focusing on how AI activates specimen data rather than on algorithms alone, this presentation shows how data-driven approaches can reduce knowledge gaps, complement limited taxonomic expertise and support evidence-based conservation aligned with global biodiversity targets.
Advancing biodiversity knowledge through specimen digitisation: Case studies from Madagascar
Letsara, R.1, Rakotonirina, N.2, Ralimanana, H.2 & Larridon, L.2
1 University of Antananarivo, Madagascar; 2 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK
Digitisation is transforming how we understand and conserve global biodiversity by making physical collections accessible to the international scientific community. This presentation explores the critical role of digitised specimens in accelerating botanical knowledge within Madagascar, a global biodiversity hotspot. We highlight two pivotal initiatives at the Parc Botanique et Zoologique de Tsimbazaza (PBZT). First, we reflect on the successful completion of the Madagascar Moss Project, which established a digital baseline for bryophyte diversity. Second, we discuss the ongoing ‘Today’s Flora for Tomorrow’ project. These efforts aim to provide a digital backup of invaluable collections, mitigating the risk of physical loss while increasing curatorial efficiency. By integrating high-resolution imaging with label data, these projects form an online catalogue that serves as a vital resource for conservation planning and taxonomic research. Our experience demonstrates that digitisation not only preserves Madagascar’s natural heritage but also empowers local and international researchers to address the urgent challenges of the biodiversity crisis through open-access data.
New uses of digitised specimen data for improving understanding of species extinction
Humphreys, A.M.1, Witts, N.A.1, Silvestro, D.2,3, Antonelli, A.2,4,5 & Fisher, D.O.6
1 Stockholm University, Sweden; 2 Gothenburg University, Sweden; 3 ETH Zurich, Switzerland; 4 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK; 5 University of Oxford, UK; 6 University of Queensland, Australia
Evidence for the ongoing biodiversity crisis rests on assessment of a small fraction of described species, with major knowledge gaps for most organisms, including plants and fungi. In this talk, I will highlight how digitised specimen data can be used to accelerate and improve estimates of ongoing species extinction, with a focus on herbarium specimens and plant extinction, but with relevance for natural history collections of other organisms as well. I will focus on species already considered extinct because they represent a special category for understanding biodiversity loss and a special scientific challenge, as their ‘detection’ relies on proving absence. This challenge can be mitigated by shifting focus from pursuing presence/absence answers to a probabilistic framework that allows estimating the probability that any given species is extinct. I will introduce methods for estimating the probability of species extinction and show that they have so far rarely been applied to species listed as extinct on the Red List. I will then review how these methods applied to the massive amounts of digitised data being produced across the ‘global metaherbarium’ can be used to scale up estimates of species extinction. Finally, I will present preliminary results of ongoing work toward this aim. Ultimately, this work can contribute to increasing the accuracy of lists of extinct plants and reveal the true extent of the biodiversity crisis.
When herbaria remain silent: Bias, growth and value in Nigerian collections
Zhigila, D.A.1, Schmidt-Knapik, R.J.2 & Davis, C.C.2
1 Gombe State University, Nigeria; 2 Harvard University Herbaria, USA
Global biodiversity science increasingly depends on herbarium data, yet many collections remain what we term ‘silent’: under-recognised, under-resourced and largely absent from global data infrastructures. Although these challenges are widely acknowledged, they are rarely analysed quantitatively. Using Nigerian herbaria as a case study, this talk draws on our recent analyses to demonstrate how their silence introduces temporal, spatial and taxonomic biases into biodiversity datasets, with important implications for global biodiversity research. Missing data from these silent herbaria significantly affects downstream applications, including synthetic approaches that rely on broad and representative occurrence records. We show that more than 70% of Nigerian herbaria are not registered in Index Herbariorum, and that over 90% of their specimens remain digitally inaccessible, rendering major botanical holdings and the stewards effectively invisible to the broader global scientific community.
Our results further demonstrate that in-country Nigerian herbaria preserve unique temporal and spatial information that cannot be recovered from specimens housed elsewhere, underscoring the critical role of local collections in reducing bias in species distribution modelling and improving biodiversity inference. Building on these findings, we reveal how limited institutional support, including chronic underfunding, inadequate infrastructure and uneven recognition, constrains their visibility and contribution. Despite these challenges, we also identify notable growth in the number of active herbaria in Nigeria, exceeding global trends. Finally, we highlight the broad ways Nigerian herbaria are used in biodiversity research and especially in teaching, where they remain indispensable for developing botanical knowledge, practical skills and future scientific capacity.
From specimen data to conservation: Advancing knowledge of Brazil’s fungal diversity
Trierveiler-Pereira, L.
Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil
Brazil is a megadiverse country endowed with a remarkable diversity of fungal species. The lack of trained specialists (field mycologists), combined with challenges such as the decentralisation of data across the scientific literature and the limited accessibility of these data beyond academic institutions, has resulted in fragmented and outdated knowledge of fungal diversity. One major consequence is the persistent exclusion of fungi from public conservation policies. The Flora e Funga do Brasil (FFB) project, which since its inception has aimed to incorporate fungi into its databases, has proven to be an important tool for the systematisation of data on Brazilian funga. In addition, a national project funded by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) has supported capacity building and provided incentives for Brazilian mycologists to make their data available through the FFB platform. Updated data have been instrumental in the development of the first Red List of fungi in Brazil. In the present work, I reflect on my experience as a taxonomist since 2009, collaborating with the FFB project, and on my current work involving data mobilisation and conservation initiatives.
Day 3 – Wednesday 1 July
Responsible digitisation of biocultural data in herbarium collections
Vandebroek, I.1, Hart, R.E.2, Prehn, A.D.2,3, Nesbitt, M.3, Balick, M.J.4, Beltrán-Rodríguez, L.5, Pace, M.C.4, Fonseca-Kruel, V.S.6, Murguía-Romero, M.5, Flores-Camargo, D.5 & Biocultural Collections and Data Group7
1 The University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica; 2 Missouri Botanical Garden, USA; 3 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK; 4 New York Botanical Garden, USA; 5 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico; 6 Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; 7 http://ceeb.econbot.org
Plant and fungal collections in herbaria are more than biological records; many also contain cultural knowledge about how Indigenous and local communities name, use and relate to species across space and time. Digitisation offers new opportunities to highlight this cultural dimension and support biocultural heritage and conservation but should be done responsibly. This presentation addresses how researchers can avoid exposing communities to risks from cultural misappropriation, commercial exploitation by outsiders or increased pressure on culturally important species. Institutions must not assume that all ethnobotanical knowledge can be openly shared. Communities need clear explanations about how digital information may circulate, and can benefit from training in digital rematriation/repatriation and restorative co-curatorship. Building on the work of the Biocultural Collections and Data Group, we focus on actions that institutions can take, such as:
- developing tools and pathways to identify what information can and cannot be shared publicly, including legacy data from historical collections;
- empowering communities to inform, lead and govern digitisation of their knowledge, so they can decide what to share, restrict or keep offline;
- co-creating new digitisation projects with communities, shaped by their priorities, and supported by culturally meaningful metadata, governance tools and legal frameworks;
- recognising community contributors, including named individuals where requested;
- strengthening local herbaria and digitisation capacity in underfunded biodiverse regions; and
- designing user interfaces and digital tools that allow scholars, students and community members to find biocultural information easily.
Responsible digitisation combines practical approaches with community-led decision-making, and supports community leadership in caring for and sharing their biocultural heritage.
Acknowledging local contexts: Recognising Indigenous knowledge and provenance as part of the biocultural value of collections
Hudson, M.1,2, Hopkins, H.2 & Anderson, J. 2,3
1 Te Kotahi Research Institute, New Zealand; 2 Local Contexts, Navajo Nation, USA; 3 New York University, USA
Herbaria across the globe steward collections of preserved plants and fungi which can provide immense value for society. An old challenge of collections is that they prioritised scientific collection relationships but displaced others, particularly those with Indigenous communities. The new challenge for collections is to demonstrate ‘value’ from continuing public investment which has heightened the focus on identifying and realising the potential biocultural wealth of collections.
Benefit-sharing on genetic resources is central to the management of biodiversity within the CBD. Recent developments at COP 16 include the establishment of a groundbreaking multilateral agreement for DSI, a particularly relevant shift given the development of advanced genomic technologies assisted by digitisation projects, open sharing platforms and AI-assisted analytics.
Recognising Indigenous provenance in metadata and establishing appropriate attribution protocols have emerged as key mechanisms for alignment with the FAIR & CARE Principles, to provide opportunities to recognise IPLC interests, and to support fair and equitable benefit sharing. Equitable benefit sharing is not only about the distribution of monetary funds, but the opportunity to participate in future research activities.
Local Contexts is a global non-profit that supports Indigenous communities with tools to reassert sovereignty and cultural authority in collections and data. The Traditional Knowledge (TK) and Biocultural (BC) Labels and Notices create pathways for partnership and collaboration with IPLCs by enhancing and legitimising locally based decision-making and Indigenous governance frameworks for determining access and culturally appropriate conditions for sharing collections.
Connecting tradition and technology: The digitisation of the Ethnobotanical Collection at the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden
Fonseca-Kruel, V.S.¹, Coimbra Jr., C.E.A.¹, Estevão da Silva, L.A.¹, Oliveira, F.A.¹, Vasconcelos Mesquita, M.P.¹, Taniguchi, M.¹ & Forzza, R.C.1,2
¹ Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; ² Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade, Brazil
Ethnobotanical collections are repositories of biocultural heritage that document the historical and contemporary relationships between humans and plants. The Ethnobotanical Collection (RBetno) is a collection related to the Herbarium of the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden (RB). It houses a diversity of belongings (artefacts, utensils) and raw materials of plant origin. It adopts a qualitative approach, emphasising the representativeness of species diversity, their uses and the associated traditional knowledge, rather than mere quantity. Currently, it comprises approximately 300 records and 817 images, encompassing 57 botanical families, 119 genera and 91 species, mainly from the Atlantic Forest, Cerrado and Amazon biomes. Fundamentally, our management and digitisation approach is guided by the FAIR and CARE principles, prioritising ethical access and respect for traditional communities and Indigenous Peoples, who are the holders and guardians of this knowledge. In accordance with these ethical principles, we have implemented a comprehensive digitisation protocol. The specimens are catalogued in the JABOT system, coded with barcodes, and photographed in high resolution with 26–40 megapixel full-frame cameras and 50 mm macro lenses. This enables a detailed visual representation of 2D and 3D objects, ensuring that the ethnographic context is digitally preserved alongside the taxonomic data. With the digitisation of RBetno, we hope to make the information openly accessible soon, fostering intercultural dialogue, supporting plant conservation policies and associated knowledge, and highlighting technology's potential to protect biocultural heritage.
Biography – Mphatso Martha Kalemba
Environmental Affairs Department, Ministry of Natural Resources and Climate Change, Malawi
Mphatso Martha Kalemba is a chief environmental officer and head of the Biodiversity Section at the Environmental Affairs Department in Malawi. She is also currently Malawi’s ABS Focal Point under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Mphatso has represented Malawi at various CBD COP, SBSTTA and UNEA meetings, where she has been involved in several negotiations through the African Group of Negotiators and co-chaired a number of contact groups and deliberations. She served as a co-chair of the Open-ended Working Group on Benefit-sharing from the Use of Digital Sequence Information on Genetic Resources under the CBD. Mphatso has a master’s degree in environmental governance and a bachelor’s degree in environmental science and technology.
Biography – Quentin Groom
Meise Botanic Garden, Belgium
Quentin Groom works at Meise Botanic Garden, where he focuses on biodiversity informatics and the use of digital data in botanical research and conservation. His work centres on how biodiversity data are collected, standardised, shared and reused, particularly in relation to taxonomy, invasive species and policy-relevant biodiversity indicators.
He has a long-standing interest in citizen science and its role in generating, validating and mobilising biodiversity data, especially where professional capacity is limited. Much of his work involves developing and coordinating data infrastructures, workflows and analytical approaches that integrate data from natural history collections, monitoring programmes and public participation initiatives.
Quentin has been involved in a range of European and international projects addressing the use of digital biodiversity data in research and decision-making, including initiatives on taxonomic capacity-building, invasive alien species and improving access to biodiversity information. He also works on biodiversity and conservation projects in the UK Overseas Territories, including Montserrat, where digital data can play an important role in supporting conservation planning, local capacity building and international collaboration.
Through this work, he engages with questions around open access, data governance and institutional responsibilities in the management of biodiversity data.
Biography – Paula Westenberger
Brunel University of London, UK
Dr Paula Westenberger is a Senior Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law and a member of the Centre for AI at Brunel University of London. She is a BRAID (Bridging Responsible AI Divides, UKRI/AHRC funded) Research Fellow, leading the project ‘Responsible AI for Heritage: Copyright and human rights perspectives’, in partnership with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Paula holds an LLB from PUC-Rio (Brazil), an LLM and PhD in Intellectual Property Law from Queen Mary University of London, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Curating and Collections Management from Birkbeck. She is the Editor of the European Copyright and Design Reports (ECDR) and founder and coordinator of the Heritage AI and Law (HAIL) Network. Her research covers the intersection between copyright law, human rights and culture, with a current focus on the use of AI in the cultural heritage sector. She is a Brazilian qualified lawyer, with 20 years of experience in IP law.
Biography – Dame Angela McLean DBE FRS, Government Chief Scientific Adviser
UK Government
Professor Dame Angela McLean DBE FRS is the Government Chief Scientific Adviser, having taken up the role in April 2023. She is also Head of the Government Science and Engineering Profession. Prior to this, Angela was the Chief Scientific Adviser for the Ministry of Defence.
Until April 2023, Angela McLean was a Professor of Mathematical Biology in the Department of Zoology at Oxford University and a Fellow of All Souls College. Angela’s research interests lie in the use of mathematical models to aid our understanding of the evolution and spread of infectious agents.
Angela is interested in the use of natural science evidence in formulating public policy and has co-developed the Oxford Martin School Restatements: an activity which restructures and presents the evidence underlying an issue of policy concern or controversy in a short, uncharged, intelligible form for non-technical audiences.
Angela established Mathematical Biology at the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council’s Institute for Animal Health in 1994. Before this, Angela was a Royal Society Research Fellow at Oxford University and a Research Fellow at the Institut Pasteur in Paris.
In 2009, Angela was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society. She was awarded the Gabor Medal in 2011 and the Weldon Memorial Prize in 2018. She received her damehood in the 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honours List. In 2024, Angela was appointed an Honorary Distinguished Professor of Loughborough University.
Digitising Kew’s Herbarium and Fungarium
Paton, A.J.1, Phillips, S.1, Weech, M.-H.1 & Adcock, J.A.2
1 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK; 2John Adcock Consultancy, UK
We completed the digitisation of Kew’s 6.35 million herbarium specimens and almost one million fungarium collections in March 2026. Our four-year project was built on experience of previous collaborative projects, notably the Global Plants Initiative which focussed on digitising type specimens; the Brazilian Reflora Project with transcription of Kew specimen images transcribed in Brazil; pilot projects with the Natural History Museum London and RBG Edinburgh; and experiences of other institutions undertaking large-scale digitisation of their collections. There were three main parts to our project: an integrated collection management system developed in collaboration with Earthcape Oy; the digitisation of our collections with Max Communications Ltd. as the digitisation contractor; and a new Data Portal built on the Atlas of Living Australia platform. This talk will focus on the digitisation of the collection.
Digitisation was carried out in over 40 workstations situated close to the collections being digitised. This reduced the distance collections were moved and allowed more time than conveyor belt mechanisms to barcode separate specimens on the same sheet and take additional images if labels were obscured. The more complex imaging of difficult groups such as orchids, palms and fungi was done by in-house teams. The transcription of the specimen images was carried out in India through systems managed by Max Communications.
We will outline the main lessons learned and report on the main benefits arising from the project and how we intend to monitor the benefits over time.
Fungal museomics at scale: Two-year progress of the Fungarium Sequencing Project (FSP)
Gaya, E.1 & The FSP Consortium2
1 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK; 2 https://zenodo.org/records/18630914
Fungal nomenclature and classification rely on special reference specimens known as ‘types’; yet many of these historical specimens have never been rigorously reviewed or DNA sequenced and remain largely underutilised in the genomic era. The Fungarium Sequencing Project (FSP) addresses this gap by molecularly characterising 7,000 type specimens for public use from the UK’s premier collections: the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBGK), the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) and the Natural History Museum, London (NHM). Together, these institutions curate over 1.8 million specimens, including approximately 61,000 types.
The FSP aims to stabilise the fungal tree of life by generating whole-genome sequences from historical material, aiding in species delimitation and phylogenetic resolution. Beyond taxonomic clarity, this project serves as a critical bridge to biodiversity policy. By transforming physical vouchers into ‘molecular digital evidence’, the FSP supports international frameworks such as Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) under the Nagoya Protocol. We present systematic methodologies for taxonomic assessment, ancient DNA extraction and a modular bioinformatics pipeline designed for genomic processing of degraded samples.
Two years in, the project has assessed nearly all collections of the phylum Basidiomycota at Kew, alongside half of the phylum Ascomycota, and has sequenced more than 1,000 genomes. This work identifies predictors for sequencing success across diverse fungal groups and develops the infrastructure necessary to integrate genomic data with historical metadata. Ultimately, the FSP provides the high-resolution digital evidence required for informed conservation and evidence-based policy, ensuring that historical collections drive modern regulatory and scientific advancements.
The UK’s Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo UK)
Smith, V.S. & Hardy, H.
The Natural History Museum, London, UK
DiSSCo UK is a ten-year national research infrastructure that will transform access to the UK’s world-leading natural science collections, creating a sovereign digital information asset for research, innovation, policy and public benefit. Delivered by AHRC in partnership with the Natural History Museum and a nationwide consortium of collections-holding institutions, the programme will digitise tens of millions of specimens and associated data, opening collections that are currently fragmented, physically distributed and underused.
This presentation will move beyond the business case for DiSSCo UK to describe the delivery plan: how the programme will build sector-wide capability through coordinated digitisation hubs, shared training, common standards, and central infrastructure for the secure storage, publication and access of FAIR data. A central theme will be the role of the Natural History Museum as a ‘hub of hubs’, drawing on more than a decade of large-scale digitisation experience and its stewardship of around 60% of the UK’s natural science collections. This includes the DiSSCo UK Catalysis Centre, which will use AI, robotics, knowledge graphs and applied data services to accelerate digitisation and turn collections data into actionable insight for science, policy and industry. The presentation will also set out how institutions can be involved in, prepare for and benefit from DiSSCo UK, whether or not they receive direct digitisation funding.
Digitised open data has global impact
Miller, J.T.
Global Biodiversity Information Facility, Denmark
Large-scale digitisation of museums and herbaria, like Kew, has an outsized global impact. The sharing of open biodiversity data helps build the evidence base for science and policy not only in the United Kingdom but in the country of collection. The integration of data from different sources allows connection to related data with images, DNA sequences and even phylogenies. This data sharing allows reuse for many scientific applications beyond taxonomy and systematics, such as conservation, invasive species research and climate change. At GBIF, we track data usage and confirm the use of Kew data in strategic documents that inform policy such as the IPBES assessment on invasive species. GBIF users link their GBIF-enabled research to achieving UN Sustainable Development Goals. Perhaps most importantly, the easy access to shared digitised data is immediately available to national reporting and the CBD Global Biodiversity Framework.
Biography – Pierre Bonnet
CIRAD, France
Pierre Bonnet is a senior scientist at CIRAD and co-lead of the Pl@ntNet citizen science platform. His research operates at the interface of plant ecology, biodiversity informatics and machine learning. He specialises in the design and evaluation of AI methods to bridge the gap between large, heterogeneous biodiversity data streams and operational monitoring services.
His work encompasses fundamental methodological contributions, ranging from automated data curation and standard setting for model evaluation to workflows for large-scale automated mapping, as well as the deployment of end-user tools that empower practitioners to translate complex biodiversity indicators into actionable information for conservation. His research increasingly focuses on leveraging citizen science data to enrich global taxonomic knowledge.
Pierre coordinated the EU-funded GUARDEN project and contributes as a work package (WP) leader to the MAMBO EU project, both dedicated to developing next-generation technologies for large-scale biodiversity monitoring and evidence-based decision-making. In addition, he represents Pl@ntNet within the World Flora Online consortium (WFO), where he actively advocates for interoperability between citizen science observations, digital specimen collections and global taxonomic reference systems, ensuring that AI-driven insights from these vast collections are robust, curated and accessible for science and society.
Biography – Juhie Radia
Data Analyst and RBG Kew Youth Council, UK
Juhie is a member of the Kew Gardens Youth Council and a data analyst by profession. Working at the intersection of environment and technology, she was recognised as one of the Top 20 Women in Data and Tech for developing data-driven environmental policy proposals presented to Downing Street and the G7, and was invited to speak at COP30 on the role of AI and climate technologies. At the Symposium, Juhie hopes to share insights on how data can be used to uncover meaningful narratives and how AI and technology can support and enhance conservation efforts.
