Duke University Herbarium, 2010. Photo: Carl Rothfels. Source: Duke University Herbarium Web Page.
In a staggeringly short-sighted move, Duke University has decided to divest itself of botanical collections of great scientific and historical importance; collections that helped establish Duke as a formidable institution in the study of biodiversity, contributed to significant scientific discoveries, and served as the material basis for studies by students who subsequently became leaders in their field. While a molecular lab may be constructed in a matter of months, many decades to centuries are necessary to assemble a world-class collection. One should not, therefore, make a decision lightly to give away such uniquely valuable research resources. Few universities have comparably great collections, so this move demotes Duke from a rarified club—with members like Harvard, Oxford, Cornell, and Berkeley in its ranks— to one among countless institutions who simply follow popular trends in science rather than having a commitment to long term excellence in areas dependent on specialized research resources.
The irony is that after supporting its herbarium for so long, it abandons the collections at a moment in history when they are gaining unprecedented scientific and societal importance. The ephemeral and disproportionate focus on molecular data will pass as a matter of necessity. It is simply too important to science and humankind to know species in detail for a molecular-based taxonomy to long survive. Things like DNA barcodes are a desperate, stop-gap measure to speed the process of identifying species and such compromised taxonomy will soon reveal itself to be a sorry substitute for the information-rich traditions of systematics. We deserve to know the diversity and history of life on our planet, not merely make species recognizable to meet immediate needs of ecology and conservation.
Science is an expression of a deep-seated curiosity in humans that cannot long be suppressed. We were not satisfied to have a partial periodic table of the elements or knowledge of the cosmos limited to the objects visible in our own solar system. Our desire to understand ourselves and our world will ultimately drive us to learn as much as we can about the species around us and to understand, in detail, the transformative steps by which the amazing diversity of attributes of species came to be from a handful of ancestral ones. The current tree-hugging will, sooner than later, give way to the recognition that more than the components of ecosystems are at stake in the current accelerated rate of extinction. We are on the cusp of losing evidence of the history of life on the only planet known to be biologically diverse.
The decline in support for fundamental systematic biology at a time of mass extinction is a shameful development that will be one day be seen as among the most astonishingly wrongheaded episodes in the annals of science. We have, free for the taking, millions of species that flesh out the story of billions of years of evolution, explain where we and all other species came from, and provide evidence of the players in an exceedingly complex biosphere. Passing up this never to be repeated opportunity to pursue technological whistles and bells and the immediate need to simply identify species is among the greatest blunders in history.
Fortunately, it is not too late to avoid this catastrophic loss of knowledge. There remains time to complete an inventory of species begun by Linnaeus, the descriptions of species pursued by generations of taxonomists, and the phylogenetic classification of life envisioned by Hennig. We act as if it is an either/or choice between making species identifiable and advancing the mission of systematics: it is not. To the contrary, by supporting taxonomists to pursue their own agenda we create more, and more reliable, information for those seeking identifications. They not only can identify species, but those identities become a portal to deep knowledge of species themselves and are based on explicitly testable hypotheses, not mere measures of genetic similarity.
As species go extinct at a rate never seen in human history, it should be a top priority to inventory species in an effort to make the world’s collections, taken as a whole, a full and accurate record of species diversity as it exists at the dawn of the Anthropocene. Few species will leave a fossil record, so most species that we fail to document in coming decades will simply never be known. The cost to our ultimate understanding of evolutionary history, biosphere, and our origins will be enormous unless we immediately change course to support taxonomy and natural history collections.
There is no shortage of blame to go around: biologists who selfishly care only that their short-term needs are met and who remain willingly ignorant of the intellectual content, breadth of knowledge, and unique needs of systematic biology;Â administrators who foolishly measure success in money rather than knowledge; and taxonomists who shamefully go along with fads in biology, failing to take a strong stand in defense of their own science.
There is one other group that shares guilt in the erosion of support for taxonomy and the slowed progress in exploring life on earth: institutions who possess natural history collections. This includes natural history museums, botanical gardens, and a relatively small number of research universities. In possessing such collections, they have a special responsibility to both the welfare of those collections and assuring that collections are used in areas of research that are impossible without them.
Traditions of taxonomy are still tolerated by a dwindling number of institutions, but it is rare that any museum or university raises a strong voice in support of the growth and development of collections or the advance of systematic biology beyond currently popular molecular data.
We are on the cusp of one of the greatest tragedies in the history of science by choosing to pass up the last opportunity to fully explore the diversity of species on our planet and preserve specimens with which studies of diversity and evolutionary history may continue, even after a mass extinction event. We need unapologetic leaders among the ranks of taxonomy, of course. And we need principled biologists in other fields willing to recognize the objective importance of exploring our own planet’s life forms before it is no longer a possibility. But we also need institutional leadership, a few museums, gardens and universities with great collections and the vision and courage to lead science and society through the first mass extinction in human history.
Thus, we need to lift up our institutions with world-class collections in defense of a scientific tradition that dates from Aristotle, Linnaeus, Darwin and Hennig, a tradition that is more important today than ever in light of the rate of extinction. History is calling forth leaders at a time when every institution seems to be a blind follower, during a time when taxonomy is foolishly sidelined for trendy technology and more popular areas of research; leaders who recognize the challenges and opportunities of our age and are willing to engage in a great effort to gather evidence of the diversity and history of life forms of a planet undergoing rapid change.
Any institution can potentially become good at following fads and attracting large sums of research monies. Only a few institutions achieve greatness, becoming leaders in a sea of followers by adhering, for example, to a clear vision of the broad horizons of species exploration at a time when others are thinking small, limiting their view to one source of data and ignoring all we can learn by coming to truly know species. In the past, I assumed that Duke was among such leaders and would defend scientific and intellectual traditions rather than joining followers who clear out collections to make way for more fashionable molecular labs.Â
Optimism is difficult when formerly front-line institutions abdicate leadership. If those with great collections lack the vision and commitment to put them to work in the interest of science and society, who will? Once the herbarium is dismantled and dispersed, some of the great questions of our time will be beyond the reach of Duke to pursue. We should challenge our institutions with collections to be visionary and courageous rather than conforming to pop science. It is time to put up our Dukes—and our Harvards, Cornells, natural history museums, and botanical gardens—to fight for fundamental taxonomic knowledge as our first line of defense in a mass extinction. We need courage, not conformity. Tenacity along with technology. And a few heroic visionary leaders in an era of cynical, spineless compliance.
In abandoning collections during a planetary-scale biodiversity crisis, Duke is giving up far more than its herbarium. It is giving up its status as a leader in the exploration of biosphere and evolution. It is giving up its ability to educate the taxonomic leaders urgently needed by our circumstances. And it is sacrificing an information-rich research resource for lab facilities easily duplicated on any campus. This is a sad day for science, education and one of America’s great institutions.
References
Cranford, Claire. 2024. ‘To kill a program’: Duke to close herbarium after over 100 years of operation. The Chronicle, 15 February.
Palmer, Kathryn. 2024. Scientists decry closure of Duke’s herbarium.  Inside Higher Ed, 16 February.
Looks like Duke is striving for mediocrity or worse. Quite disgusting for a putative academic institution. Academic In Name Only. AINO (ain’t no) University. Pun intended.