In a landmark advancement for biodiversity science and conservation, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has announced the successful completion of a monumental digitisation initiative, unlocking over 7 million plant and fungal specimens for free global access. This digital transformation, detailed in the sixth “State of the World’s Plants and Fungi” report published on 16 June 2026, leverages cutting-edge technology to revolutionize how scientists document, analyze, and ultimately conserve the natural world. By making vast botanical and mycological collections accessible online, researchers worldwide are now empowered with unprecedented tools to accelerate discoveries, guide policy decisions, and facilitate sustainable stewardship of Earth’s vital green and fungal resources.
The comprehensive report synthesizes the expertise of more than 400 scientists across 40 countries, exploring the pivotal role of digital technologies—such as artificial intelligence, global data-sharing platforms, and mass digitisation—in bridging critical gaps in species knowledge. Historically, plant and fungal specimens have been meticulously collected, pressed, and preserved within herbaria for centuries, yet remained physically inaccessible beyond their host institutions. Today, these millions of preserved specimens have been transformed into rich digital datasets, enabling remote comparative studies that not only verify species identification but also uncover hidden biodiversity previously concealed in collections.
These advances have substantive scientific and conservation implications. For example, in Costa Rica, the integration of digitised records alongside published fungal data revealed an approximate 20% increase in known fungal diversity, offering novel insights into climate-induced distribution patterns. Such findings are critical as fungi—which remain one of the least explored kingdoms of life—play essential ecosystem roles from nutrient cycling to symbioses affecting plant health. Similarly, AI-powered algorithms have demonstrated proficiency in classifying notoriously challenging taxa like sedges and peat mosses, which exhibit intricate microscopic features. This capability significantly expedites taxonomy, guiding efforts to document species at risk before they vanish.
Real-time digital collaboration is also transforming fieldwork. Contributions from researchers in the Republic of Congo, who submitted smartphone images of anomalous peatland species, led to the identification of a potentially new species in the genus Sabicea, underscoring how digital imagery augments specimen-based taxonomic workflows, particularly in under-surveyed and remote regions. Moreover, sophisticated analyses combining digitised seed collection data from Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank and the Morton Arboretum in the USA allow for refined estimations of genetic diversity stored within seed banks. These insights enable precision in restoring habitats and reintroducing threatened species, cementing seed banks’ role in ex situ conservation strategies.
This unprecedented digitisation effort was principally funded by the UK government through Defra and encompasses 7.4 million herbarium and fungarium specimens whose physical image chain would span nearly 3,000 kilometers if laid end to end. Unlocking these historical archives reveals species new to science and subtly records long-term biological responses to climate change, such as phenological shifts captured in flowers pressed centuries ago. The resultant online portal democratizes access, empowering researchers, conservation practitioners, and policymakers worldwide with reliable data to inform conservation priorities and environmental legislation.
Despite these successes, significant inequities persist in biodiversity data digitisation, particularly across the Global South. Vast collections remain undigitised, constituting “silent herbaria” whose absence skews global biodiversity and climate modelling, undermining conservation efficacy. For instance, in Honduras, data gaps obscured a third of species recorded in protected areas from management plans, while in Nigeria, limited digital presence renders crucial collections virtually invisible to global scientists. Targeted programs, such as the Today’s Flora for Tomorrow initiative in Madagascar, are bridging these gaps by systematically digitising thousands of local specimens, fostering capacity-building for Malagasy researchers and enhancing conservation-informed decision-making.
Crucially, the digitisation process is enabling a fundamental shift in botanical science, addressing centuries of science inequity by retaining original reference specimens (holotypes) within countries of origin and revealing untold contributions from traditionally overlooked collectors, including women, Indigenous peoples, and citizen scientists. Digitising ethnobotanical collections preserves invaluable traditional knowledge, creating a robust platform for intercultural research that can inspire innovative biocultural conservation approaches rooted in local contexts.
The report also highlights an alarming underestimation of extinction risks: nearly 30,000 plant and 400 fungal species are threatened, but formal assessments cover only a fraction of all known species. Under-described species, especially fungi, remain at risk of disappearing before even being named, exemplified by discoveries such as Purpureocillium atlanticum, a parasitic fungus from Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. Taxonomic description remains painstakingly slow, evidenced by species like the ghost palm of Borneo, named 92 years after its initial collection. Digital tools and statistical extinction models offer promising avenues to accelerate this process, providing probabilistic assessments that acknowledge uncertainty and rare or cryptic species—the so-called Katuš shortfall—thereby refining conservation prioritization.
Analysis of digitised herbarium specimens has also unveiled complex, regionally variable phenological shifts attributable to climate change, with average flowering times worldwide advancing by approximately 2.5 days per decade over the past century. These shifts are non-uniform, influenced by microclimates and precipitation patterns, substantially altering plant-pollinator interactions and ecosystem stability. In India’s Western Ghats, significant declines in the synchrony of Terminalia paniculata flowering may disrupt pollination processes and forest composition. Similarly, in the Canadian Arctic, inconsistent flowering trends and shortening seasons pose risks for high-latitude biodiversity resilience.
Fungal biology is poised for a genomic renaissance, as scientists have developed techniques to extract and sequence high-quality genomes from specimens dating back over 180 years. This capability transforms historical fungaria into genomic treasure troves, accelerating the discovery of novel bioactive compounds, enhancing crop disease management, and improving epidemic forecasting. UK-led collaborative projects aim to establish the world’s most extensive fungal genome library, encompassing rare, extinct-in-the-wild and previously unsequenced species, thereby unlocking new frontiers in fungal taxonomy and biotechnology.
The report concludes with an urgent call for intensified global collaboration to integrate, standardize, and democratize biodiversity data. Exemplary systems like Brazil’s unified digital biodiversity infrastructure demonstrate the power of interconnected databases and virtual herbaria to streamline conservation research and action. Nonetheless, equitable access and inclusive scientist training remain critical to prevent digital tools from perpetuating systemic biases. The authors advocate partnerships uniting technology innovators, conservationists, and policymakers to substantially bolster under-funded collections, ensuring biodiversity data maximizes its impact in reversing species declines.
In sum, the digital revolution in botanical and fungal collections is more than a technological feat; it is an essential transformation redefining how humanity perceives and protects the natural world. As digital tools mature, they hold the promise of democratizing nature’s deep knowledge, enabling rapid scientific discovery, and inspiring hope amid the accelerating biodiversity crisis.
Subject of Research: Plant and fungal biodiversity digitisation, conservation technology, taxonomy, global biodiversity data equity, climate change impacts on phenology, fungal genomics.
Article Title: Harnessing the benefits of specimen digitisation
News Publication Date: 16 June 2026
Image Credits: Jeff Eden © Royal Botanic Gardens Kew
Keywords
Plant sciences, biodiversity, digitisation, herbarium, fungi, taxonomy, artificial intelligence, climate change, conservation, global data sharing, genomic sequencing, phenology
