Changes in plant collection practices from the 16th to 21st centuries: implications for the use of herbarium specimens in global change research.

Our findings strongly support the hypothesis that many characteristics of herbarium specimens have changed systematically and substantially from the 16th to 21st centuries due to changes in plant collection and preservation practices. These changes may both create patterns which could be erroneously attributed to environmental changes and obscure historical trends in plant traits. The utmost care ought to be taken to guard against the possibility of misinterpretation of data obtained from herbarium specimens. We recommend that directional changes in characters of herbarium specimens which occurred during the past 150‒200 years, primarily in specimen size and in the presence of reproductive structures, are accounted for when searching for the effects of past environmental changes on plant traits.