NYBG Globe Spotter

Every year, tens of thousands of new botanical collections make their way into the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium from every corner of the globe. Often arriving pressed between sheets of newspaper from their country of origin, these precious biological samples document everything from enormous rainforest trees to tiny wildflowers. When made accessible quickly to researchers online, these incoming collections represent a vital flow of new information about the state of the world’s plants and fungi.

Through our latest virtual expedition series, “NYBG Globe Spotter”, Notes from Nature participants can help rapidly connect scientists to biodiversity collections worldwide which are relevant to their field of interest. If you’ve participated before in our US State Spotter projects, you will recognize this streamlined workflow focusing on each subject’s geographic origin. In these new series of expeditions, you will travel virtually to nearly every continent on the planet as you search specimen labels for clues to identify the COUNTRY (or US State) where each organism was collected from its environment.

In response to mounting global crises, from public health to biodiversity loss, it is more important than ever to understand the multitude of connections that hold our living Earth together. Fortunately, by helping to uncover the latest botanical observations from around the world, you can directly support scientific research to investigate these planetary threads.

To get started, follow the link to our latest “NYBG Globe Spotter” expedition on the Notes from Nature-NYBG project page.

— Charles Zimmerman, New York Botanical Garden, William and Lynda Steere Herbarium

Zooniverse username: @czimmerman