Duke closes huge plant collection, causing scientific outcry

University officials say they can't afford to maintain one of the largest herbaria in the United States. Researchers urge Duke to reconsider its decision.

Duke University has decided to close its herbarium, a collection of 825,000 specimens of plants, fungi and algae created there more than a century old. . The collection, one of the largest and most diverse in the country, has helped scientists map the diversity of plant life and chronicle human impact on the environment.

The university collection This decision left researchers in shock. “This is such a devastating blow to the science of biodiversity,” said Erika Edwards, curator of the Yale Herbarium. “The entire community is both shocked and outraged. »

Scientific societies also protested against this decision. “Duke's decision to abdicate responsibility for its herbarium specimens sets a terrible precedent,” the Natural Science Collections Alliance wrote in a letter to the university last Friday.

The alliance, along with six other scientific societies, supported a petition asking Duke to reconsider closing the herbarium. As of Wednesday, it had collected more than 11,000 signatures.

"It is very shocking that such a large collection at a wealthy university would be deemed dispensable," said Regina Baucom, a plant geneticist at the University of Michigan.

In an email sent last week to herbarium staff, Susan Alberts, dean of natural sciences at Duke, said the university had decided that the collection should be moved elsewhere in the next two to three years.

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