The digital revolution of scientific collections

With physical plant specimens slowly overwhelming herbariums, we have seen a strong push to find ways of digitising current and future plant specimens. This is already beginning to happen; in 2021 we saw HM Treasury fund £15m for the digitisation of Kew gardens plant and fungi collections, now PlantGang is here to contribute to this digital revolution, it’s time to bring nature on chain.

THE PAST

Tradition plant specimens are stored in herbariums as 2D paper pressings

Traditional specimens are…

• Confined to a single location
• Susceptible to damage
• Only accessible to certain audiences

THE FUTURE

Future plant specimens will be stored in virtual herbariums as 3D model NFTs

Future specimens are…

• Stored on a decentralised network
• Have no vulnerabilities to viewing
• Are openly accessible to all

A Heliconia pogonantha specimen collected from the Costa Rican rainforest on Expedition #1.

A Heliconia pogonantha specimen collected from the Costa Rican rainforest on Expedition #1.

Associated Scientific Metadata

Each 3D model specimen is collected with associated scientific metadata (see example below) that gives them scientific content. For our herbarium specimens the collected scientific metadata matches that conventionally taken with traditional 2D physical specimens, allowing our 3D models to develop this space digitally whilst still respecting the conventional research practices in this field.

Importantly, the collected data is validated by an expert of the regions flora, allow this data to be traced back to a reliable source on chain.

Alternatively, associated scientific data may be collected by citizen scientists in the future, where their reputation as a collector can be determined by a combination of their experience and a community evaluation of their specimen and scientific metadata quality.

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