Declining growth of natural history collections fails future generations
Fig 1
Growth of natural history collections through time using the subset of the world’s collections available through GBIF.
(A) Broad fluctuations exist across 5 vertebrate groups in the number of specimens added to natural history museums since 1840. (B) Recent declines in collections growth from 1990 to 2021. (C) GBIF includes collections from over 60 countries, but many collections are based in the United States of America. Colored bars indicate the proportion of USA-based collections for each vertebrate group, which represent 25% to 42% of data. GBIF, Global Biodiversity Information Facility.