A new paper entitled Wikidata for Botanists: Benefits of collaborating and sharing Linked Open Data has been published in the Annals of Botany. This publication is the result of a collaboration of four researchers (who are all also Wikidata editors) from three countries. Curator Botany Heidi Meudt talks about how this unique international collaboration come about, and what does Wikidata have to do with Botany?
It all started with an idea…
In 2023, Te Papa Botany Curator Heidi Meudt and fellow Wikidata editor and Wellingtonian Siobhan Leachman submitted a proposal to teach botanists how to use Wikidata at the XX International Botanical Congress (IBC) in Madrid, Spain in July 2024.
Our workshop proposal was successful, and we quickly invited two other botanical Wikidata editors to join our team: Sabine von Mering (Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, Germany) and Joaquim Santos (Herbarium of the University of Coimbra, Portugal).
At the IBC Wikidata workshop, we spent the day upskilling over 20 botanists on how to improve Wikidata’s coverage of botanical topics such as collectors, species and research papers.
We also presented a poster at the congress. Our poster gained the attention of two editors from Annals of Botany, who invited us to expand our ideas into a manuscript and submit it to that scientific journal for consideration for publication!
After the congress, we got to work writing our paper collaboratively via weekly Zoom sessions as well as individually on our own time. It took us about six months to write and submit the paper.
Everything is connected
Wikidata is a linked open knowledge base that contains multitudes of information, including botany-related information. Anyone can contribute to Wikidata in any language by adding Linked Open Data. You can read more about it here – What is Wikidata? – Library Carpentry
When we put information as structured data into Wikidata, we can make linkages between the data points so that everything is connected. For botany, examples include linking up people (such as botanists and plant collectors) with the plant species they study, the botanical research publications they write, the institutions and locations where they work, and the botany research expeditions they’ve been on.
Benefits to the botanical community and a call to action
Our published paper shows how Wikidata helps to improve access to, as well as the linking and reuse of, all of this botany-related information. It illustrates how Wikidata can both quantify and illuminate the expertise of botanists and the impact of their contributions to botany. It gives examples of how botanical institutions can gain advantages through the reuse of Wikidata content and contends that botany, botanical institutions and botanists can benefit from wider engagement with Wikidata.
In our paper, we call on botanists to use Wikidata to help our community reach the goals of the Madrid Declaration, which was put forth by the thousands of botanists from around the world who attended IBC 2024. The ten calls to action aim to “strengthen the connection between plants and people, nurture mutual benefits, and enhance planetary health and resilience.” Wikidata is one of the tools we can use to reach these urgent goals.
References
- von Mering S, Leachman S, Santos J, & Meudt HM. 2025. Wikidata for Botanists: Benefits of collaborating and sharing Linked Open Data. Annals of Botany. mcaf062. https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcaf062 (Q134741661)
- XX International Botanical Congress. 2024. The Madrid Declaration. https://ibcmadrid2024.com/docs/press/7.pdf (Q133272904)
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