Forensic botany is a diverse discipline that spans many aspects of plant sciences, particularly taxonomy, field botany, anatomy, and ecology. Internationally, there is a significant opportunity to expand the application of forensic botany in criminal investigations, especially war crimes, genocide, homicide, sexual violence, serious physical assault, illegal trade in endangered species and wildlife crime. In civil proceedings, forensic botany may, for example, be called upon in trade disputes such as accidental contamination of commodities. Despite the potential, there are barriers to the wider application of forensic botany in criminal cases; there is a widespread need to improve the efficiency of botanical trace evidence identification. This could partly be addressed by embracing innovations in image recognition and by accessing the huge quantity of specimens and images housed in natural history collections worldwide. Additionally, the recent advances in DNA sequencing technologies and the expansion of environmental DNA (eDNA) and forensic ecogenomics, offers opportunities to more rapidly provide species-level identifications. The impact of taphonomic processes upon vegetation, and vice versa, remains poorly understood; improved understanding of these interactions and their ecological impacts may be invaluable in improving clandestine burial search protocols.
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September 2021
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This issue of Emerging Topics in Life Sciences: Advances in Forensic Science explores emerging analytical tools and how they might be implemented by forensic scientists and communicated within the justice system.
Review Article|
April 19 2021
Forensic botany: time to embrace natural history collections, large scale environmental data and environmental DNA
Mark A. Spencer
Mark Spencer Botany, Ryde, U.K.
Correspondence: Mark A. Spencer ([email protected])
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Publisher: Portland Press Ltd
Received:
January 03 2021
Revision Received:
March 23 2021
Accepted:
March 30 2021
Online ISSN: 2397-8562
Print ISSN: 2397-8554
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Portland Press Limited on behalf of the Biochemical Society
2021
Emerg Top Life Sci (2021) 5 (3): 475–485.
Article history
Received:
January 03 2021
Revision Received:
March 23 2021
Accepted:
March 30 2021
Citation
Niamh Nic Daeid, Lucina Hackman, Mark A. Spencer; Forensic botany: time to embrace natural history collections, large scale environmental data and environmental DNA. Emerg Top Life Sci 24 September 2021; 5 (3): 475–485. doi: https://doi.org/10.1042/ETLS20200329
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