Duke shuts down massive plant collection, causing scientific uproar

Duke University has decided to close its herbarium, a collection of 825,000 specimens of plants, fungi and algae that was established more than a century ago. The collection, one of the largest and most diverse in the country, has helped scientists map the diversity of plant life and record humans' impact on the environment.

The university's decision has left researchers reeling. “This is such a devastating blow to biodiversity science,” said Erika Edwards, the curator of the Yale Herbarium. “The entire community is shocked and outraged at the same time.”

Scientific associations have also protested against this move. “Duke's decision to abdicate responsibility for their herbarium specimens sets a terrible precedent,” the Natural Science Collections Alliance wrote in a message. letter to college last Friday.

The alliance, along with six other scientific societies, supported one petition asking Duke to reconsider closing the herbarium. More than 11,000 signatures had been collected by Wednesday.

“It is very shocking that such a large collection at a wealthy university is considered redundant,” said Regina Baucom, a plant geneticist at the University of Michigan.

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

“This is a loss for Duke,” she said in an interview with The Times. “We see it as the responsible thing to do to ensure that this collection is preserved for posterity in a place designed for that purpose.”

However, so far no place has agreed to give it a home. “There are no herbariums that can absorb something like that,” said Kathleen Pryer, director of the herbarium. “I'm very concerned that it will end up in a warehouse somewhere and be forgotten.”

Herbariums have been a mainstay of biology for centuries. Botanists return from expeditions with dried leaves, flowers, stems and seeds, which are then preserved for posterity. Some specimens have even been the basis for naming new species.

But herbaria are also valuable because they contain plants collected over long periods of time, allowing scientists to track people's impact on the environment. Some collections have shown that plants do their reach shifted because the planet has warmed up, for example.

The collections have become even more useful as technology has advanced. Researchers have started working on improved DNA sequencing extract genetic material of dried plant specimens, tackling ancient scientific questions such as the origins of the world's crops.

Botanists are far from finished documenting plant diversity. And every year they identify new species that need to be saved because many are already threatened with extinction.

In recent decades, some other universities have closed their herbaria, unwilling to maintain the space needed for the collections or the money needed to maintain them. In 2017, the University of Louisiana Monroe cleared out half a million units to make room for new athletic facilities.

The copies were saved from destruction at the 11th hour when they were moved to other collections that found space for them.

The Duke Herbarium was founded in 1921 and has grown steadily in the 103 years since. Researchers study not only the plants, but also other species, such as lichens, to investigate the effects of air pollution on the environment.

Last March, Duke University boasted about the climate research conducted in the herbarium a promotional video.

But Rytas Vilgalys, an expert on fungi at the herbarium, said it had been clear for some time that Duke was considering closing it. “We have seen the writing on the wall for years,” he says.

Dr. Pryer said Duke administrators asked her last year to write reports to justify continued support of the herbarium. But after talks with a potential donor collapsed in January, Dr. Alberts Dr. Pryer knew it would close.

“It's really a tragic turn of events,” said Dr. Pryer.

Dr. Alberts said Duke's biology department needs to spread its support across many areas. “We will not dictate to the department that they have to hire people in these areas forever,” she said. “We are a university with limited resources.”

Duke University has one donation of $11.6 billion.

Dr. Alberts also emphasized that Duke's plan was to move the herbarium elsewhere. “We don't destroy anything,” she said.

Jonathan Shaw, a biologist at Duke, said he was negotiating the inclusion of the mosses and related plants by another herbarium. “I'm hopeful that we can move the collections to places that will really promote biodiversity,” he said.

But Dr. Pryer said even institutions that have expressed interest weren't sure they could find the money to seize parts of the collection. She feared that parts of the herbarium could be lost during the shaking.

Brent Mishler, a former herbarium curator at Duke and administrator of the herbarium at the University of California, Berkeley for 30 years, said Duke's decision would also mean the loss of a strong tradition of academic research into plant diversity.

“It is shameful for Duke to discontinue research and training in biodiversity studies,” he said.