Natural history museums have been essential for studying biodiversity for centuries. These museums represent the cumulative effort of tens of thousands of people who have studied, collected, and preserved biological specimens for posterity. Until recently, however, little attention has been given to the people who built these invaluable resources for studying the world's biodiversity. In this talk, we will explore the history of botanical collecting in the northeastern United States and how collector practices have shaped modern biodiversity science. As an example, I will focus on how the work of 19th century botanists has enabled us to study the impact of historical shipping trade and ballast deposition on the flora of the Northeast. Together, we will explore how combining data from natural history museums with historical, genealogical, and spatial data can provide us with a more comprehensive understanding of biodiversity collections and their vital importance to modern science.
Speaker: Ryan J Schmidt-Knapik, PhD candidate at Charles Davis Lab, Organismic & Evolutionary Biology | Harvard University Herbaria, Harvard University.