Agriculture & Environment
Plant science & botany research: societies, funders, collections and rules
Plant science and botany research covers how plants are named, collected, grown, measured and used, from molecular mechanisms to vegetation and from herbarium sheets to field trials. The field is organised around learned societies as much as institutions. The Botanical Society of America runs sections that include Systematics, Ecological, Economic Botany, Genetics and Genomics, Phytochemical, Paleobotanical, Phycological and Pteridological, and publishes the American Journal of Botany, which dates from 1914. The American Society of Plant Biologists, founded in 1924, publishes Plant Physiology and The Plant Cell, and the American Phytopathological Society, founded in 1908, publishes Phytopathology and Plant Disease.
Funding in the United States runs mainly through the NSF Plant Genome Research Program and the USDA NIFA Plant Health and Production and Plant Products programme area, which lists eleven priority areas from plant physiology and breeding to biosecurity and plant-microbe interactions. The shared infrastructure is specimen and name based: Index Herbariorum lists 4,035 active herbaria holding about 406 million specimens, GBIF aggregates occurrence records under the Darwin Core standard, and IPNI and World Flora Online hold names and floras. The USDA GRIN database and the Millennium Seed Bank hold germplasm.
Anyone working in the field must also handle rules that cross borders. The International Plant Protection Convention governs phytosanitary standards, the Nagoya Protocol governs access to genetic resources, and the Plant Treaty sets a standard material transfer agreement for listed crops. The specialisation hubs cover systematics, herbaria, physiology, phenotyping, pathology, microbiomes, ecology, phytochemistry, ethnobotany, cryptogams, paleobotany and seed banking.
New to the field? What is Plant Science & Botany? →
Reviewed 5 November 2026 by CASRAI Editorial Board
- American Journal of Botany(read 5 November 2026)
- New Phytologist(read 5 November 2026)
- Botanical Society of America (BSA) and its sections(read 5 November 2026)
- American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB)(read 5 November 2026)
- American Phytopathological Society (APS)(read 5 November 2026)
- NSF Plant Genome Research Program (PGRP)(read 5 November 2026)
- USDA NIFA Plant Health and Production and Plant Products(read 5 November 2026)
- Index Herbariorum(read 5 November 2026)
- Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)(read 5 November 2026)
- Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL)(read 5 November 2026)
- International Plant Names Index (IPNI)(read 5 November 2026)
- World Flora Online(read 5 November 2026)
- USDA GRIN and the National Plant Germplasm System(read 5 November 2026)
- Millennium Seed Bank Partnership(read 5 November 2026)
- Darwin Core(read 5 November 2026)
- International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC)(read 5 November 2026)
- Plant Treaty (ITPGRFA) and Standard Material Transfer Agreement(read 5 November 2026)
- Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing(read 5 November 2026)
- bioRxiv(read 5 November 2026)
Field at a glance
Journals
- American Journal of Botany
- Botanical Society of America journal, established 1914, published through Wiley; covers all aspects of plant biology.Website ↗
- New Phytologist
- Founded 1902 by Arthur Tansley; published by Wiley-Blackwell for the New Phytologist Foundation and covering all aspects of botany.Website ↗
Societies
- Botanical Society of America (BSA) and its sections
- Sections include Systematics, Ecological, Economic Botany, Phytochemical and Paleobotanical; BSA also publishes Applications in Plant Sciences.Website ↗
- American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB)
- Founded 1924 as the American Society of Plant Physiologists; publishes Plant Physiology (since 1926), The Plant Cell (since 1989) and Plant Direct.Website ↗
- American Phytopathological Society (APS)
- Founded in December 1908; journals include Phytopathology, Plant Disease, Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions and Phytobiomes Journal.Website ↗ · Our guide →
Funders and programmes
- NSF Plant Genome Research Program (PGRP)
- BIO directorate programme with RESEARCH-PGR and TRTech-PGR tracks; the page marks solicitation 24-547 archived and points to PD 26-7577.Website ↗
- USDA NIFA Plant Health and Production and Plant Products
- AFRI programme area with eleven priority areas, such as A1152 Physiology of Agricultural Plants and A1171 NSF-NIFA Plant Biotic Interactions.Website ↗
Archives, facilities and data
- Index Herbariorum
- NYBG registry of herbaria; 4,035 active herbaria, about 13,625 staff and an estimated 406 million specimens at 31 December 2025.Website ↗
- Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)
- International network launched in 2001 that serves open biodiversity occurrence and name data through web services.Website ↗ · Our guide →
- Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL)
- Open digital library of biodiversity literature founded in 2006, with over 59 million pages and name indexing and APIs.Website ↗
- International Plant Names Index (IPNI)
- Non-commercial index of names and bibliographic details for seed plants, ferns and lycophytes, launched 1999 by Kew, Harvard and ANH.Website ↗
- World Flora Online
- Open online flora launched in 2012 by four botanical gardens, now involving 36 institutions; it replaced The Plant List v1.1.Website ↗
- USDA GRIN and the National Plant Germplasm System
- Germplasm database of over 500,000 accessions across about 10,000 species, running on GRIN-Global since November 2015.Website ↗
- Millennium Seed Bank Partnership
- Kew-coordinated ex situ programme at Wakehurst holding just under 2.5 billion seeds from over 40,000 species, with 100+ partners.Website ↗
Standards and formats
- Darwin Core
- TDWG biodiversity data standard, ratified 9 October 2009, for describing taxa, specimens and occurrences.Website ↗ · Our guide →
- International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC)
- FAO treaty from 1951 whose secretariat sits in Rome and which issues the International Standards for Phytosanitary Measures.Website ↗ · Our guide →
- Plant Treaty (ITPGRFA) and Standard Material Transfer Agreement
- Adopted 2001, in force 29 June 2004; its Multilateral System covers 64 food and forage crops using the SMTA.Website ↗ · Our guide →
- Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing
- Adopted 29 October 2010, in force 12 October 2014; requires prior informed consent and mutually agreed terms, with an ABS Clearing-House.Website ↗ · Our guide →
Preprints and indexes
- bioRxiv
- Biology preprint server launched November 2013, now run by openRxiv; has a Plant Biology category.Website ↗ · Our guide →
14 pages across 6 topic areas
Research Data Management
- CyVerse: Cyberinfrastructure and Data Repository for Plant Biology and Life Sciences
CyVerse is an NSF-funded, open-source cyberinfrastructure platform providing data storage, bioinformatics analysis tools, and DOI-issuing dataset publ…
- MetaboLights: EMBL-EBI's Open-Access Metabolomics Data Repository
What MetaboLights is, who operates and funds it (EMBL-EBI/ELIXIR), what data types and ISA-Tab metadata it requires, how MTBLS accessions work, and ho…
- Metabolomics Workbench: The NIH-Funded National Metabolomics Data Repository
What Metabolomics Workbench is, who funds and operates it, what data it accepts, its mwTab submission requirements, its Study/Analysis ID system, and…
- Stock Centre: Research Stock Centres, Ordering and Acknowledgment
A research stock centre distributes model-organism stocks. Compare BDSC, ABRC and ZIRC on holdings, ordering, depositing and acknowledgment wording.…
- Tropicos: Botanical Nomenclature and Data Guide
A research guide to the Tropicos database by Missouri Botanical Garden, covering botanical nomenclature, specimen records, REST API access, and citati…
Laboratory Operations & Safety
- Ectomycorrhiza: Structure, Role & Lab Protocols
A research guide to ectomycorrhiza anatomy, Hartig net and mantle structure, nutrient exchange dynamics, and laboratory root-tip identification protoc…
- Holotype: Botanical Definition and Curation Guide
Holotype is the single physical specimen fixing a plant name under the ICN. Learn how herbaria curate, catalog, and preserve primary name-bearing type…
- Seed Storage: Genebank Protocols & Longevity Rules
A guide to seed storage under FAO standards: orthodox vs recalcitrant seeds, moisture isotherms, hermetic packaging, and germination viability monitor…
- SEINet: Southwest Herbarium Data Portal Explained
SEINet is a Symbiota-powered portal for herbarium specimen records. See how it is organised, its sub-portals, and how to cite and reuse its data.…
Research Methods & Statistics
- What Is Botany? Research Areas, Funding, and Career Paths
A thorough answer to "what is botany," covering its major sub-disciplines, the NSF/USDA/DOE funding landscape, common research methods, and career and…
- What Is Plant Pathology? Research Areas, Funding, and Career Paths
A thorough guide to what plant pathology studies, its major sub-disciplines, how research is funded (USDA NIFA, ARS, APHIS, NSF, and private funders),…
Research Information & Identifiers
- Darwin Core occurrenceID: Persistent IDs for Specimens
How Darwin Core's occurrenceID uniquely and persistently identifies individual biological and museum specimen records within GBIF, and why that granul…
Research Tools & Software
- ImageJ Leaf Area: Set Scale, Threshold and Analyze Particles
How to measure leaf area in ImageJ with Set Scale, threshold and Analyze Particles, plus length measurement, scale bars and reading the results.…
Technology Transfer & Innovation
- Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) Compliance for International Material Transfer Agreements
How Nagoya Protocol PIC/MAT obligations and the EU's due-diligence regulation shape the ABS-specific clauses a technology transfer office must draft i…
