AI could help win ‘race against extinction’ of vital plants, say botanists
TL;DR
A Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew report says AI and digitisation could speed up botany: models can identify difficult plants such as sedges and peat mosses faster, helping scientists spot new or threatened species sooner. Kew has digitised all 7.4 million of its own specimens. Globally, 145 million digital herbarium and fungarium records are now online, but that is still less than 16% of total collections.
Nauti's Take
The strong part is refreshingly practical: AI is not being sold as a chatbot, but as a microscope for dusty archives. That is more credible than the usual save-everything tech story.
Still, the claim is report-driven and optimistic. If less than a fifth of collections are digitised and many data gaps sit in biodiversity-rich countries, AI can scale old blind spots as easily as it scales discovery.
The useful version is funding, local science capacity and open collections first; models second.
Briefingshow
The point is not that AI will save species by itself. It turns old collections into usable datasets: millions of specimens become time series for climate stress, distribution shifts and genetic diversity. That matters because many plants and fungi may disappear before they are even named, assessed or tested for food, medicine and ecosystem value.
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