Realising the potential of herbarium records for conservation biology

• Herbarium specimens have traditionally been used for purely taxonomic purposes.
• We review and illustrate new uses for herbarium data.
• Herbarium data can provide ecological baseline data, especially in poorly sampled regions.
• Herbarium data are important data sources for conservation and should be protected.

One of the major challenges in ecosystem conservation is obtaining baseline data, particularly for regions that have been poorly inventoried, such as regions of the African continent. Here we use a database of African herbarium records and examples from the literature to show that, although herbarium records have traditionally been collected to build botanical reference “libraries” for taxonomic and inventory purposes, they provide valuable and useful information regarding species, their distribution in time and space, their traits, phenological characteristics, associated species and their physical environment. These data have the potential to provide invaluable information to feed into evidence-based conservation decisions.