About the Project
Herbaria, scientific collections of dried plant specimens, are the major frontier for new plant species discovery and for understanding and protecting already known and threatened species. Globally, billions of specimens in herbaria and other biodiversity collections contain data about species’ distributions, traits, and environmental responses that are critical for conservation, restoration, ecology, and foundational biology.
This project harnesses the power of cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence (AI) to unlock the vast, underutilized data in herbarium collections to reverse biodiversity loss and increase climate resilience by enabling strategic decision making.
We will develop advanced vision-language models and computer vision tools to automate species identification, trait extraction, and metadata parsing at a scale and speed impossible through manual methods. These AI-driven breakthroughs will dramatically accelerate biodiversity discovery, support conservation actions for species and geographic areas, and inform environmental policy and decision-making. Without AI, the sheer volume and complexity of these collections and their associated data would remain a bottleneck to global conservation progress. With AI, we are building scalable, open-access tools that can transform biodiversity science and conservation planning worldwide.
This project will advance local, regional, and global efforts to reverse biodiversity loss and strengthen climate resilience by dramatically increasing the quantity, quality, and availability of plant data that serve as the foundation for biodiversity science and conservation actions. Through AI-enabled identification, extraction, and parsing of critical plant data faster than is possible through manual methods, we will:
- Accelerate threat detection and improve habitat assessments for conservation and other environmental practitioners, particularly those advancing IUCN Red List assessments, Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) and Important Plant Areas (IPAs);
- Enable policymakers to make timely, evidence-based recommendations on land use, protected species and areas, and conservation investment; and
- Inspire new, high-quality research studies grounded in robust scientific evidence that can open new pathways for innovative ecological, evolutionary, and climate response studies.
