PubMed · 2025-05-19
Millions of pressed plant specimens held in museum collections worldwide are now digitized and freely searchable online, giving scientists an unprecedented window into how plants have shifted their blooming, leafing, and fruiting times over decades and across continents as climates change.
Tens of millions of digitized herbarium specimens are now available online, enabling phenology research at spatial and temporal scales impossible with field observation alone.
Two major research themes have emerged: studying seasonal timing across broad geographies and time periods, and testing ecological and evolutionary theories that were previously untestable due to data scarcity.
Key limitations include sampling biases, questions of data reliability and transferability, and ethical concerns; future advances are expected from Arctic and tropical collections, AI-assisted digitization, and international collaboration.