Uses of Primary Species-Occurence Data

This paper examines uses for primary species occurrence data in research, education, and in other areas of human endeavour, and provides examples from the literature of many of these uses. The paper examines not only data from labels, or from observational notes, but the data inherent in museum and herbarium collections themselves, which are long-term storage receptacles of information and data that are still largely untouched. Projects include the study of the species and their distributions through both time and space, their use for education, both formal and public, for conservation and scientific research, use in medicine and forensic studies, in natural resource management and climate change, in art, history and recreation, and for social and political use. Uses are many and varied and may well form the basis of much of what we do as people every day.