Wikidata for botanists: benefits of collaborating and sharing Linked Open Data

https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcaf062, available online at www.academic.oup.com/aob INVITED REVIEW Wikidata for botanists: benefits of collaborating and sharing Linked Open Data Sabine von Mering1,*,, Siobhan Leachman2,, Joaquim Santos3, and Heidi M. Meudt4, 1Museum für Naturkunde - Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, 10115 Berlin, Germany, 2Independent researcher, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand, 3Centre for Functional Ecology, Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, 3000-456 Coimbra, Portugal, and 4Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, 6011, New Zealand *For correspondence. E-mail sabine[email protected] Received: 21 December 2024 Returned for revision: 17 March 2025 Accepted: 13 May 2025 • Background Wikidata is a multilingual linked open knowledge base to which anyone can contribute that contains multitudes of botany-related information. Wikidata reveals interactions between entities and connects botany-related information from multiple institutions and other sources, benefiting the botanical community in numerous ways. The aim of this article is to give an overview of Wikidata from a botany perspective and issue a call to action to the botanical community to collectively improve the quantity and quality of information related to botany, botanists and botanical collections, in Wikidata. Here, we use a broad definition of botany to include the study of many different taxa and specializations. • Scope Wikidata contains botany-related data and identifiers for botanists and botanical collectors, botanical taxa, natural history institutions and collections, botany-related publications, geographical locations and research expeditions, as well as genes, genetic variants, chemical compounds, diseases, and more. As an open, collaborative and community-curated knowledge base, Wikidata enables different communities to add and link data related to botany and empowers the querying and reuse of this data via digital tools such as the Wikidata Query Service, Bionomia, Scholia, TL-2 and Expeditia. • Conclusions Collaboration is key in botany and Wikidata, and the sharing and enriching of botany-related Linked Open Data benefits us all. Several resources, including ethical and legal guidelines, are available for botanists to edit, use, reuse, roundtrip and teach Wikidata. We call on all botanists to be active participants in Wikidata, improving the quality, quantity and linking of botany-related data. Our individual and collective actions can help harness the power of Linked Open Data to answer important queries in the field, improve accessibility of herbaria, increase visibility of botanists and their scientific contributions, integrate Wikidata into the classroom, support the Madrid Declaration strategic actions, achieve our collective goals, and ultimately make botany-related information more FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and equitable. Key words: Biodiversity data, Bionomia, botanists, collaboration, digital outreach, digital tools, herbaria, identifier, knowledge graph, Linked Open Data (LOD), open science, Wikidata. INTRODUCTION Wikidata (Q2013) is a tool used to link data about many things. The following botanical story indicates how Wikidata can assist in providing context and enable the linking of botanical data. The famous French botanist and explorer Auguste de SaintHilaire (Q707961) collected many specimens throughout his life. Between 1816 and 1821 he explored Brazil (Q155), where he collected a specimen from which he described a new species to science: Oxalis insipida A.St.-Hil. (Q39395060; https://www. gbif.org/occurrence/438235985). In 1832, Charles Darwin (Q1035), travelling aboard HMS Beagle (Q35926), stopped at the Island of Fernando de Noronha, Brazil (Q2438090). Among his collections was a specimen of Oxalis L. that was used many years later by Daniel Oliver (Q1161960) to publish a new species in William Jackson Hooker’s Icones Plantarum (Q5901658): Oxalis noronhae Oliv. (Q131343589; https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/4951949000). More than a century later, the FrancoArgentinian botanist Alicia Lourteig (Q454806) held this specimen in her hands and concluded that it was the same species as the Saint-Hilaire specimen, as we can see by her determination slip (Q131467875) from 1957. In fact, in her revision of the genus Oxalis (Q157378) (Lourteig, 1994), Lourteig reclassified this taxon as a subspecies of Oxalis psoraleoides Kunth (Q131350563), a species described by Carl Sigismund Kunth © The Author(s) 2025. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Annals of Botany Company. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Annals of Botany 136: 491–511, 2025 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/136/3/491/8158086 by The Wikipedia Library user on 02 October 2025 von Mering et al. — Wikidata for botanists 2 (Q77074) in 1821 in the journal Denkschriften der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu München (Q20014480) based on a specimen collected by Alexander von Humboldt (Q6694) and Aimé Bonpland (Q405702) in Colombia (Q739) during their famous expedition to America between 1799 and 1804 (Q130639025; https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/694191712). More recently, phylogenetic studies have provided new insights into the evolution and relationships in this group. A recent molecular phylogenetic study of Oxalis subg. Thamnoxys (Endl.) Reiche (Q21382429) (which includes O. psoraleoides subsp. insipida (A.St.-Hil.) Lourteig, Q111323930) showed that the traditional taxonomic arrangement did not match genetics (Cabral et al., 2024). It is worth mentioning that, following standard practice, all DNA sequences from that study are available in GenBank (Q901755) for others to use (National Library of Medicine, 2025). Searching the literature, one learns that the flowers of O. psoraleoides have been visited by both the hummingbird Chlorostilbon lucidus (Q1262955; Las-Casas et al., 2012) and the honeybee Apis mellifera (Q30034; Nascimento et al., 2014). The species is also used as food by three rural communities in the state of Pernambuco, Brazil (Q40942; Lucena et al., 2007), and is cited as a traditional antimalarial (Q521616) in Peru (Q419; Milliken et al., 2021). This story illustrates what we can learn when we start pulling the thread that constitutes the network of knowledge. All these explorers, expeditions, botanists, scientists, species and places—in short, all these entities (Q35120)—are connected with each other (Fig. 1). Similarly, there is a huge amount of botany-related information that has been published over centuries that contains hidden connections between such entities. Much of this textual information is made available on the internet in a digital format. This information is usually unstructured, and hence is siloed, lacking in context, and not interoperable. In addition, information in different biodiversity databases as well as digital libraries is often not linked (e.g. Thomas, 2009; Page, 2022, 2023). Despite platforms, projects, initiatives and individuals attempting to rectify this problem (e.g. Plazi, Q7203726; Agosti and Egloff, 2009; Biodiversity Heritage Library, BHL, Q172266), there is still a long way to go. Numerous platforms exist that publish botanical data and other botany-related information, including BHL, Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF, Q1531570), Global Registry of Scientific Collections (GRSciColl, Q98594614), Index to Plant Chromosome Numbers (IPCN, Q131378293), International Plant Names Index (IPNI, Q922063), Q6694 Carl Sigismund Kunth feeds on nectar synonym synonym synonymized synonymized reclassified feeds on nectar feed on use as antimalarial described described described collected collected collected collected subspecies of species of Alexander von Humboldt Apis mellifera Chlorostilbon lucidus Rural communities Oxalis subg. Thamnoxys GenBank Aimé Bonpland Alicia Lourteig Daniel Oliver Charles Darwin Oxalis psoraleoides ssp. insipida Oxalis noronhae Oxalis psoraleoides Oxalis insipida Auguste de Saint-Hilaire Q77074 Q30034 Q1262955 Q104711361 Q21382429 Q131350563 Q111323930 Q405702 Q454806 Q1161960 Q1035 Q707961 Q131343589 Q39395060 Q901755 has sequences of Fig. 1. Knowledge graph of entities linked to Oxalis psoraleoides subsp. insipida (Q131350563) (A. St.-Hil.) Lourteig described in the above botanical story. Available online at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fig_1_Oxalis_psoraleoides_ssp._insipida_Knowledge_Graph.jpg, Joaquim Santos, CC0 (https:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) via Wikimedia Commons. 492 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/136/3/491/8158086 by The Wikipedia Library user on 02 October 2025 von Mering et al. — Wikidata for botanists 3 Palynological Database (PalDat, Q59786289), TRY Plant Trait Database (Q113391569), World Flora Online (WFO, Q77076820), and so on. However, their scope tends to be relatively specific. Furthermore, these platforms are not always integrated and can fail to include appropriately structured and searchable connections to broader yet relevant information. Such relevant information about botanists might include their employers and other career details, collaborators, geographical placements or kin relationships; about botany-related publications such as disambiguated authors, publishing journals or papers that have been cited in the publication; and about taxa such as publications giving the original description, images of the taxon, geographical range or taxon traits. Wikidata can assist with tackling this issue of unstructured and unlinked data. By creating or enriching content on Wikidata, this knowledge base can be used to transform unstructured data into a structured format, with values assigned to predefined fields. Publishing information in Wikidata ensures it is findable, able to be accessed, interoperable (the structure follows a documented standard), and obstacle-free with regard to reuse (licensing), thus progressing towards achieving compliance with FAIR principles (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse of digital assets, Q29032644; Wilkinson et al., 2016). By empowering the botanical and broader communities to work together to collaboratively create Linked Open Data (LOD, Q18692990), Wikidata can transform siloed data into interoperable knowledge, linking and connecting these data and thus ensuring this knowledge is accessible and reusable. Once added to Wikidata, the information is transformed into Linked Open Data as the data are available in RDF dumps (Resource Description Framework; Berners-Lee, 2006; Erxleben et al., 2014; Wikidata, 2025a; Fig. 2). This in turn opens a world of possibilities. It is worth mentioning that Wikidata was not built specifically for botany or any other field. Wikidata was originally designed to overcome the difficulties of accessing data in multiple-language Wikipedia articles and was intended to provide a central repository empowering access and the ability to reuse these data (Vrandečić et al., 2023). The use of Wikidata has subsequently been adopted by multiple scientific and humanities disciplines (Waagmeester et al., 2020, 2021; Lemus-Rojas et al., 2022; Zhao, 2023; Shafee et al., 2023; Kaiser and von Mering, 2024; Matos et al., 2024; Turki et al., 2024). Wikidata is a sister project to the well-known online encyclopaedia Wikipedia (Q52), and both are platforms of the Wikimedia Foundation. The thousands of individuals throughout the world who edit in this so-called Wikiverse (Q130313479) are called Wikimedians (Q41546637). Since its launch in 2012, Wikidata User Generated Life Science Publications Cross Domain Government Geography Linguistics Media Social Networking Other Fig. 2. Wikidata in the Linked Open Data Cloud. Databases are indicated as circles (with Wikidata labelled as ‘WD’), with grey lines linking databases in the network if their data are linked. (Layout by graphopt algorithm in the igraph package in R. Data from https://lod-cloud.net/datasets. Text and image available online at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikidata_in_the_Linked_Open_Data_cloud.jpg, Thomas Shafee, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0), via Wikimedia Commons. A searchable version of the same cloud can be found here: https://lod-cloud.net/clouds/lod-cloud.svg. 493 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/136/3/491/8158086 by The Wikipedia Library user on 02 October 2025 von Mering et al. — Wikidata for botanists 4 has been populated with a wide variety of data by individual Wikidata editors, who number ~25 000 worldwide (see https:// www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Statistics, date last accessed, 15 May 2025). Today, Wikidata comprises >100 million items from all fields of knowledge (Shafee et al., 2023). Of these, >12 million are people (see Wikidata query https://w.wiki/CU2w, date last accessed 15 May 2025; Fig. 3), with 68 755 listed as having their occupation (P106) as botanist (Q2374149) (see Wikidata query https://w.wiki/CTZA, date last accessed, 15 May 2025). Similarly, there are currently about 4.1 million taxa (Fig. 3) including 3.2 million species in Wikidata (see Wikidata query https://w.wiki/CS4k, date last accessed 15 May 2025), and of these, for example, ~730 000 are angiosperm species names (https://w.wiki/CUZn). With the structured botany-related data already available in Wikidata, which itself is only a fraction of the total potential data that can be linked in Wikidata, it is possible to reveal interactions that can help expand botany-related knowledge. This expansion would be very difficult to achieve without the help of tools that query and display such data (Figs 2–4). Botanyrelated data in Wikidata can also feed into the biodiversity knowledge graph (Waagmeester et al., 2020; Page, 2022), a network of linked biodiversity data that visualizes the digital linking possible between different biodiversity-related entities (Page, 2013; Fig. 5). The current article is the result of an international collaboration of the four co-authors (three of whom are botanists and all of whom are Wikimedians) and their activities at the XX International Botanical Congress (IBC) in Madrid, Spain, in July 2024 (see https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/ Wikidata:WikiProject_IBC_2024, date last accessed, 15 May 2025). Our contributions included organizing a full day in-person workshop entitled, ‘Upskilling in Wikidata for maximum impact: A practical workshop for botanists’ (together with online onboarding and follow-up sessions) and a poster entitled, ‘Engaging with Wikidata: Benefits and impacts for botanists and institutions’ (von Mering et al., 2024a; Fig. 6), as well as additional presentations and posters on other projects that use Wikidata. All these contributions highlighted the value of Wikidata in botanical research, encouraged botanists to contribute to Wikidata, and led to the collaborative writing and publication of this article. GETTING TO KNOW WIKIDATA Wikidata is a multilingual, linked, free and open knowledge base that is community-curated and maintained; anyone can contribute to it (e.g. Vrandečić and Krötzsch, 2014; Shafee et al., 2023). While its sister project Wikipedia comprises pages describing people, places and many other things (entities) as written prose in essay-style texts, Wikidata is a database that provides structured data on such entities as a list of referenced statements. The ‘pages’ on Wikidata for each entity are called items, and each item has a unique identifier that starts with the letter Q, the Wikidata Q identifier, also known as Wikidata QID or Q number (Q43649390; Fig. 7), as well as a label and a description (Fig. 7; see also https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/ Wikidata:Glossary for definitions of these and other Wikidata terms). At the top of each item, both the item label and description can be given in multiple languages. All data on Wikidata is structured according to a data model that uses triplets involving the subject (Wikidata item Q16222597) + predicate (Wikidata property Q18616576) + object (value). For example, a sentence like ‘Alicia Lourteig is a botanist’. would be represented in Wikidata as an item (Alicia Lourteig) that has a statement which consists of a property (in this case occupation) and a value (here botanist; see Q454806). Statements can be further specified by so-called qualifiers (Q15720608), e.g. for an institution she worked for (employer, P108) to add qualifiers start time (P580) and end time (P582) as well as position held (P39). Each item will have multiple statements (Fig. 7). Wikidata allows and encourages the referencing of the source of the data, Scholarly article Human Astronomical object Wikimedia Category Taxon Chemical compound Administrative territorial entity Occurrence Architectural structure Disambig Thoroughfare Other/None Fig. 3. Visualization of all Wikidata content as at 8 April 2024, generated using data from QLever SPARQL queries for instance of (P31) and subclasses. Available online at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikidata_content_2024.svg, VIGNERON, CC0 1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ deed.en), via Wikimedia Commons. 494 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/136/3/491/8158086 by The Wikipedia Library user on 02 October 2025 von Mering et al. — Wikidata for botanists 5 and references to publications, websites or other Wikidata items are shown together with statements contained in the database (Fig. 7). As well as Q identifiers for Wikidata items and P identifiers for Wikidata properties, Wikidata also has two other identifiers, L for lexemes and E for entity schemas (Shafee et al., 2023; Morshed, 2024). Lexemes precisely define words, their inflections, meanings and other such metadata (Nielsen, 2019). By adding lexemes to Wikidata, structured metadata about words and their meaning in various languages become reusable in tools and queries (Shafee et al., 2023). Lexemes are relevant to botany as they empower distinct scientific terms to be adequately defined in multiple languages. Entity schemas provide models for how data should be added or enriched in Wikidata for various entities. They help ensure data are added in a consistent manner and assist with facilitating community agreement on appropriate data models to be used (Shafee et al., 2023; Morshed, 2024). Wikidata is multilingual by design and can be read and edited by both machines and humans; in fact, anyone can contribute to Wikidata and make use of the data that are stored there. The data are openly licensed under a Creative Commons Zero 1.0 Universal licence (CC0, https://creativecommons. org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/, date last accessed, 15 May 2025) and thus can be reused without restriction. Importantly, the Wikidata QID acts as an identifier hub linking to other institutions’ databases and information from other sources and platforms via their identifiers (Groom et al., 2020). In this way, the Wikidata QID has become a universal identifier. Because of this, there is great potential for ‘roundtripping’ data with other Fig. 4. Visualization of global data for herbaria of the world, generated using a query in the Wikidata Query Service (https://w.wiki/CU4r). Note this query assumes that items for herbaria will have geographical coordinates on them, but as of December 2024 only 106 Wikidata items for herbaria have coordinates. The herbarium itself (not just its host institution) must have a Wikidata item with geographical coordinates to be included in this query. This visualization highlights not only the lack of separate Wikidata items for herbaria that include coordinates (with only ~3 % represented of a total of 3400; Thiers, 2025) but also a gap in Global South institutions. Both would be straightforward for the botanical community to fix by adding the missing information to Wikidata. Available online at: https:// commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikidata_query_herbaria_of_the_World.jpg, Wikimedia Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-sa/4.0/deed.en), via Wikimedia Commons. images specimens people publications journals taxon names taxa traits phylogenies sequences localities Fig. 5. Biodiversity knowledge graph from Page (2013) showing the relationships (as grey or black lines) between botanists, publications, plant taxa and other botany-related data. Available online at https://commons.wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Biodiversity_knowledge_graph_by_Rod_Page.jpg, Rod Page, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), via Wikimedia Commons. 495 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/136/3/491/8158086 by The Wikipedia Library user on 02 October 2025 von Mering et al. — Wikidata for botanists 6 Fig. 6. The poster ‘Engaging with Wikidata: Benefits and impacts for botanists and institutions’ (von Mering et al., 2024a; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11102530) presented at the XX International Botanical Congress in Madrid, Spain in July 2024, which led to the collaborative writing and eventual publication of this article. Available online at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IBC2024_Wikidata_poster.jpg, Sabine von Mering, Siobhan Leachman, Joaquim Santos and Heidi Meudt, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), via Wikimedia Commons. 496 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/136/3/491/8158086 by The Wikipedia Library user on 02 October 2025 von Mering et al. — Wikidata for botanists 7 international biodiversity and botanical databases (e.g. BHL, 2025; GBIF, 2025; IPNI, 2025; Tropicos, 2025; WFO, 2025). Wikidata contains botany-related data such as data on botanists and botanical collectors, botanical taxa, natural history institutions and collections, botany-related publications, geographical locations and research expeditions. Wikidata can also contain other data related to botany, such as genes, genetic variants, chemical compounds, natural products and diseases (Waagmeester et al., 2020). And because these data are linked, Wikidata can be an extremely powerful tool for querying and visualizing both the data and the linkages between them. For example, a Wikidata query can show us on a map how many botanists (or herbaria, Fig. 4; or species) there are in the world (or a particular country), provide lists of research papers about a particular topic, or allow us to quickly find all the available identifiers associated with a particular taxon or person. Wikidata items and their associated data can also be used by third-party tools or websites such as Bionomia (Shorthouse, 2020a, b) to visualize the collections of a particular (deceased) botanical collector, linking them to institutions, localities, co-collectors, plant taxa, research and papers (for living collectors, instead of Wikidata QIDs Bionomia uses ORCID, Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier; ORCID, 2024). Botanical research expeditions can be visualized (using Expeditia; Santos, 2024), as can botanist collaborator networks (using Scholia; Neilsen et al., 2017). Of course, the results of such queries depend entirely on the completeness of the information in Wikidata. Here, we use a Claim : Item – Property – Value ItemProperty Value Ynes Mexia occupation botanist Q2600470 P106 label description Item identifier aliases value opened reference collapsed reference value proper ty property identifier group statement group rank Q2374149 Fig. 7. An annotated Wikidata item exemplifying different parts of Wikidata, using the Mexican–American botanist Ynes Mexia (1870–1938) as an example. Available online at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ynes_Mexia_Wikidata_item_example.jpg, Makenzie Mabry, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0), via Wikimedia Commons). For definitions of some Wikidata terms, see https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Glossary. 497 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/136/3/491/8158086 by The Wikipedia Library user on 02 October 2025 von Mering et al. — Wikidata for botanists 8 broad definition of botany to include the study of many different taxa (vascular plants, non-vascular plants, algae, fungi and lichens) and specializations (e.g. taxonomy, genetics, morphology, physiology, ecology, biotechnology, ethnobotany, phytochemistry, etc.). At the moment, most of the effort and botany-related data in Wikidata relates to taxonomy and collections-based data, but there is great potential to enhance Wikidata in other aspects of botany now and in future. There are many ways that we botanists can work to improve the quantity and quality of information related to botany, botanists and botanical collections in Wikidata. The main aim of this article is to provide the background, practicalities and justification for doing so, and a call to action to each of us, and to the botanical community as a whole, to collectively make this happen. BOTANY-RELATED DATA IN WIKIDATA Wikidata comprises items for a variety of different entities. This section focuses on information about such entities related to botany as people, taxa, publications, institutions, locations and research expeditions. People The Wikidata QID has been recommended by Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG, 2025) as an appropriate identifier to use when disambiguating botanists and botanical collectors. The basis of this recommendation was that Wikidata provides a unique identifier for botanists and acts as a database hub assisting with the linking of identifiers generated by disparate organizations (Groom et al., 2022). Wikidata items relating to both deceased and living botanists and botanical collectors can contain biographical data, such as their birth name (P1477), name in native language (P1559), date of birth (P569), date of death (P570), employer (P108) and institutions they were educated at (P69) (Fig. 8). Wikidata also collates multiple institutional identifiers relating to people on their items such as BHL creator ID (P4081), Bionomia ID (P6944), Harvard Index of Botanists ID (P6264), IPNI author ID (P586), ORCID iD (P496), Tropicos person ID (P12807) and VIAF cluster ID (P214), among others. In doing so, Wikidata not only links the item to the relevant external institutions, it also provides a bridge or ‘brokerage system’ between different institutions’ knowledge about that person (Groom et al., 2020). This can include institutions that hold the archives, collections or works of that botanist, botanical collector or botanical illustrator. By undertaking this linking, Wikidata assists with the disambiguation of botanists and botanical collectors, and facilitates the collation and enrichment of data known about these people. This is especially critical for under-represented botanists (Lemus-Rojas and Lee, 2020; Leachman and Mabry, 2024), including women, LGBTQ+, Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) and other minorities, as well as local or indigenous collectors, guides and interpreters, particularly those Botanist item properties Botanist item Q2374149 Wikidata:Living People Wikidata query Wikidata properties related to people Wikidata:Autobiography notable work P800 member of P463 residence P551 field of work P101 position held P39 work location P937 employer P108 occupation P106 instance of P31 sex or gender P21 given name P735 family name P734 married name P2562 birth name P1477 short name P1813 nickname P1449 name in native language P1559 copyright status as a creator P7763 contributed to creative work P3919 country of citizenship P27 interested in P2650 has written for P6872 award received P166 doctoral student P185 participant in P1344 academic thesis P1026 affiliation string P6424 academic degree P512 student P802 student of P1066 educated at P69 doctoral advisor P184 influenced by P737 religion or worldview P140 member of political party P102 collection items at P11146 has works in the collection P6379 official website P856 archives at P485 affiliation P1416 different from P1889 described at URL P973 significant person P3342 spouse P26 unmarried partner P451 relative P1038 sibling P3373 father P22 child P40 mother P25 date of baptism P1636 floruit P1317 date of death P570 place of death P20 writing language P6886 signature P109 native language P103 handwriting example P12981 image P18 named after P138 botanist author abbreviation P428 languages spoken, written or signed P1412 date of birth P569 place of birth P19 place of burial P119 described by source P1343 Fig. 8. Visualization of a Wikidata data model for a botanist, including over 60 examples of Wikidata properties (not including identifiers) that can be used on botanist items in Wikidata. Available online at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Botanist_item_properties_diagram_10_Dec.jpg, Siobhan Leachman and Heidi Meudt, CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) via Wikimedia Commons. A hyperlinked pdf version of the same figure can be found here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Botanist_item_properties_diagram_10_Dec.pdf. 498 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/136/3/491/8158086 by The Wikipedia Library user on 02 October 2025 von Mering et al. — Wikidata for botanists 9 from the Global South (Auge et al., 2024). Building up the Wikidata items for under-represented botanists can be a first step towards aggregating verifiable, reliable, independent sources to achieve the notability criteria for creating Wikipedia articles about them (Martini, 2023). In addition, knowing who we are as a botanical community will allow us to connect, collaborate and utilize our human diversity. Wikidata can link people to data such as their occupations, field of work, educational information, employment history, work locations, scientific academy or society memberships and roles, archival and collection repositories, and publications (von Mering et al., 2024b). Different professions, positions and specializations can be added to the Wikidata property occupation (P106). A typical Wikidata item of someone active in botany could include occupation as botanist (Q2374149), botanical collector (Q2083925) or curator (Q674426) among others, while some of these could also be added instead as a qualifier, e.g. position held listed as curator or editor (Q1607826) for a certain employer. For historical botanists additional information may also be included under occupation, including explorer, naturalist or (in colonial contexts) colonial administrator or military personnel (von Mering et al., 2024b). In addition, the property significant person (P3342) can be used to connect to relevant persons and add the qualifier object of statement has role (P3831) specifying their relationship, e.g. co-author (Q15735983), co-collector (Q81546212), colleague (Q18029574), correspondent (Q3589290) or friend (Q17297777) (von Mering et al., 2024b). These data can then be used to create a relationship network for the botanist or botanical collector. Other relevant properties include collection items at (P11146), archives at (P485) and has works in collection (P6379), which are used to specify where specimens collected by a botanist, archival materials, or works of art (including botanical illustrations) are held. Over 60 examples of Wikidata properties (not including identifiers) that can be used on botanist items are shown in Fig. 8. Taxa Wikidata items relating to a taxon (Q16521) can contain taxonomic information about a taxon at any rank. A typical Wikidata item of a taxon could include taxon name (P255), taxon rank (P105), parent taxon (P171), taxon author citation (P6507), described by source (P1343), taxon synonym (P1420), taxon common name (P1843; in multiple languages), taxon range (P9714), sequenced genome URL (P6800), image (P18), and many others, all of which can be referenced to multiple sources, including publications, databases and other links. Nearly 50 examples of Wikidata properties (not including identifiers) that can be used on taxon items are shown in Fig. 9. Taxa are described using names as a proxy for a concept. Because taxonomy and nomenclature are dynamic, names and concepts can change over time: the same concept can have multiple names and vice versa. It has been debated how to address this through the use of identifiers for taxon concepts, rather than taxon names (Geoffroy and Berendsohn, 2003; Remsen, 2016). Despite some successful implementations in other systems (Lepage et al., 2014; Hüllbusch et al., 2024), this approach has not been adopted by Wikidata. Nevertheless, the use of properties such as taxon synonym (P1420) and its inverse property taxon synonym of (P12763), as well as the pair replaced synonym of (P12764) and replaced synonym (for nom. nov.) (P694) can assist in tracking the mutability of taxon names. Wikidata also collates and links to multiple identifiers relating to taxa on their items, including Catalogue of Life ID (P10585), GBIF taxon ID (P846), iNaturalist taxon ID (P3151), Invasive Species Compendium Datasheet ID (P5698), IPNI plant ID (P961), NCBI taxonomy ID (P685), Open Tree of Life ID (P9157), Plants of the World Online ID (P5037), Tropicos ID (P960), USDA PLANTS ID (P1772), World Flora Online ID (P7715), WoRMS-ID for taxa (P850) and dozens of others (see e.g. potato, Q10998) (Shafee et al., 2023). Through these links, Wikidata assists with the understanding and visualization of a taxon name and the enrichment of data known about that taxon. Wikidata can aid the enrichment of taxon-related articles in multiple language Wikipedias. For example, the identifiers from the Wikidata item for a species (such as Oxalis psoraleoides, Q131350563) are pulled into its Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxalis_psoraleoides, date last accessed, 15 May 2025) using a template that creates a ‘Taxon Identifiers’ box at the bottom of the page. As with people described above, digital tools can also use the data contained in Wikidata to enrich websites, databases and catalogues about these taxa. For example, the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) ingests both the taxon’s Wikipedia article and its accompanying Wikidata-generated taxon identifier data into the appropriate taxon page for a species, genus, family, etc. (Belbin et al., 2021). The External links section on the bottom left of the ALA page for Oxalidaceae R.Br. is a good example (Atlas of Living Australia, 2024). Wikidata can compile and reflect multiple taxonomies and classifications of a taxon, as multiple and differing referenced statements can be made for various properties on the taxon item. Wikidata also has separate items for alternative names for a taxon and can link synonyms to associated taxonomic names and their supporting publications and databases (Fig. 8). In this way, Wikidata helps to correct ‘a major gap in the biodiversity knowledge graph’ which is ‘a connection between taxonomic names and the taxonomic literature’ (Page, 2023). Wikidata can also be used as a research tool to query, understand, improve and research a particular topic in botany. For example, an innocent question on social media (‘How many plant genera were actually named after women?’) led to a multinational collaboration that answered this question by creating a multi-linked dynamic dataset in Wikidata (von Mering et al., 2023a). The authors linked the Wikidata item for an eponymous plant genus with that of the woman (or mythical female being) after whom it was named using referenced statements in the property named after (P138), thus linking between people, publications and taxa for eponymy to find the answer: at least 728 angiosperm genera were named after women or female beings (von Mering et al., 2023a). Finally, although we do not advocate the creation of Wikidata items for all specimens, it is possible for type specimens to be added to link identifiers related to types. As at the writing of this paper, this has not been worked on extensively in the Wikidata community. 499 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/136/3/491/8158086 by The Wikipedia Library user on 02 October 2025 von Mering et al. — Wikidata for botanists 16 platforms (such as ORCID or social media accounts), but rather an important connector which amplifies visibility via a robust online presence (Leachman and Mabry, 2024). Wikidata also increases the discoverability of a researcher’s identifiers and accounts, and engagement with their works (Odell et al., 2022). Wikidata also assists in the discovery of historical and current connections by linking the past with the present via Wikidata items for concepts over time. Furthermore, Wikidata improves the connectedness between communities by encouraging collaboration both within the Wiki community and with the institutions or other organizations or individuals providing the data being added to Wikidata (Groom et al., 2020). Wikidata can also be used to improve the data quality in other databases and networks, such as natural history collection management systems (Groom et al., 2020). By using Wikidata QIDs to link to stable and unique identifiers for specific entities, Wikidata encourages the enrichment and reuse of both the data related to these entities and the unique identifiers associated with them. This is particularly relevant for botanical collections as Wikidata provides QIDs for such entities as botanical collectors, other collection agents, research expeditions, and so on. A large ecosystem of digital tools to facilitate the enrichment of data has been created by the Wikimedia community and can be utilized by the botanical community to assist in enriching and extracting botany-related data. Examples of these tools include Mix’n’match (Q28054658), QuickStatements, Scholia, Bionomia and the Wikidata Query Service. Another important tool is OpenRefine (Q5583871), which is used for cleaning, reforming and extending data, and, because it also has a Wikidata reconciliation service, can be used by the botanical community to import and enrich data in Wikidata. Wikidata can be used by the botanical community for quality control purposes, which enables cross-validation and the checking of inconsistencies in data, as well as ensuring the data are plausible. Digital tools can utilize Wikidata to facilitate this quality control process. An example of one such tool that can be used in conjunction with Wikidata to undertake such work is Bionomia (see above). As just one example of quality control, a Bionomia profile for a botanist can show the plant groups or families that a botanist specializes in. This can be crosschecked against the data in Wikidata linked to via the field of work (P101) property. Similarly, it is possible to compare information from specimens attributed in Bionomia to data held in Wikidata about the work location for that botanist. Making use of Wikidata empowers both individual botanists and botanical institutions to increase the visibility of their contributors, improve the accessibility of the botany-related knowledge contributed, assist research capabilities through querying Wikidata, and serve as a tool to facilitate improvements to botany-related data quality. OUTLOOK AND CALL TO ACTION Wikidata may never be fully complete, but the more botanical institutions and botanists contribute to it (including the people reading this article), the more useful Wikidata will become to everyone in the botanical (and wider) community. Therefore, the co-authors of this paper encourage members of the botany community—both individuals and organizations—to add botany-related data to Wikidata and reuse it. The following section outlines practical guidelines and resources on how the botanical community can enrich Wikidata, including the importance and impact of collaboration on multiple levels, how to get started, data roundtripping by botanical institutions, and the use of Wikidata in the classroom. Next, several ethical and legal considerations that must be considered when editing and using Wikidata are outlined and discussed. Finally, in a call to action, the writers encourage botanists and their institutions to enrich and use Wikidata to achieve the ten strategic actions of the IBC Madrid Declaration (Table 1). Collaboration is key—in botany and in Wikidata At the XX International Botanical Congress, a distinguished plant taxonomist at the Natural History Museum, London, Sandra Knapp (Q276405), gave the opening lecture, entitled ‘Why botany? Why now?’ (Knapp, 2024). Her inspirational, passionate and forward-looking presentation highlighted how fundamental plants are to the earth, and to us. Importantly, she focused her talk on the key role of botanists and others in achieving the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, Q7649586) (https://www.un.org/ sustainabledevelopment/, date last accessed, 15 May 2025), using botanical examples in the following themes: cultivation, conservation, and collaboration as a community (Knapp, 2024). This final theme—collaboration as a community—resonates strongly not only in botany (e.g. Antonelli et al., 2024), but also in Wikidata. Bringing these two communities together to collaborate and share Linked Open Data benefits us all. Richer collaboration efforts are needed by botanists to increase the amount as well as the quality of botany-related information in Wikidata, which can in turn reduce the curatorial workload and improve the data quality in our institutional databases (Groom et al., 2020). Intensifying collaborations between the botanical and the Wikidata communities can assist with targeted improvements of data, e.g. in workshops or edit-a-thons focusing on specific topics related to botany, plants, agents active in botany or botanical collections, including herbaria, botanical gardens and others. WikiProjects (Q16695773) currently exist or can be created to facilitate collaboration efforts on improving knowledge for specific topics and provide an opportunity to invite other Wikimedians (and botanists) to get involved and contribute. Wikidata can be used to support efforts towards improving knowledge equity and can assist with the democratization of knowledge. More collaboration is needed to correct biases in Wikidata, such as the gender content gap as well as race and citizenship biases (Shaik et al., 2021; Zhang and Terveen 2021; Centelles and Ferran-Ferrer, 2024). Collaboration is also needed to improve the accessibility of data about botanical institutions and individual botanists from the Global South (Auge et al., 2024) as well as marginalized communities or collections from colonial contexts (Kaiser et al., 2023; Kaiser and von Mering, 2024). Contributions from botanists based in different countries can assist with these efforts. For example, the research undertaken on plant genera named in honour of women and mythical female beings (von Mering et al., 2023a) was completed by eight co-authors from four countries. The extended community of people working in botanical (or other natural history) collections and in the field of biodiversity 506 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/136/3/491/8158086 by The Wikipedia Library user on 02 October 2025 von Mering et al. — Wikidata for botanists 17 data or biodiversity informatics collectively has a lot of knowledge and experience in the modelling of biodiversity-related information. Bringing together this community with Wikimedians and especially Wikidata editors helps to establish communityagreed data models in Wikidata that in turn facilitate the addition and enrichment of botany-related data. Such exchange and collaboration can also involve TDWG, the organization dedicated to developing biodiversity information standards. For example, the TDWG Task Group Modelling Research Expeditions comprises botanists, collections staff, data experts and Wikidata editors. It is a fruitful collaboration for botanists to provide the broader Wikidata community with recommendations on how to model and link research-related data (including botanical expeditions) in Wikidata. An example of a successful collaboration is the creation and use of the property collection items at (P11146). Table 1. How botanists can use Wikidata to support the ten calls to action in the Madrid Declaration. For each of the ten calls to action in the Madrid Declaration reproduced in the first column, we have created a complementary call to action for specific ways botanists can use Wikidata to help support each strategic goal. The Madrid Declaration was collectively published by the congress participants at the end of the IBC and is aimed at botanists, institutions and citizens to ‘strengthen the connection between plants and people, nurture mutual benefits, and enhance planetary health and resilience’ (XX International Botanical Congress, 2024). Call to action (Madrid Declaration) Call to action for botanists using Wikidata 1. Plant Diversity as the Foundation: participants call for improved support and recognition of the critical role of plant diversity studies, natural history collections, and botanical gardens. 1. Add all herbaria, collections, research institutions, universities, natural history museums, botanical gardens, DNA banks, seed banks, laboratories and biological research stations into Wikidata. 2. Botanical Education at all Levels: participants call for increased emphasis on botanical education from early childhood through lifelong learning. 2. Add all plant taxa and botanical literature into Wikidata and use open educational resources aimed at integrating Wikidata in the classroom. 3. Collaborative Transdisciplinary Approaches: participants call for more collaborative and transdisciplinary approaches to plant research, including local and indigenous knowledge, the arts, humanities and diverse scientific approaches. 3. Work together on collaborative and multidisciplinary Wikidata projects to link botanists, plant taxa, publications, institutions, locations, research expeditions and related resources. Such collective action will help others and lead to botanical or other research follow-up projects, such as the current paper, which was based on Wikidata WikiProject IBC 2024 (https:// www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_IBC_2024). Link information from TL-2 and Bionomia to Wikidata properties for collectors and illustrators at natural history institutions. 4. Addressing Inequalities in the Plant Sciences: participants call for mutually respectful, equitable, partnership-based approaches and proper inclusion and benefit sharing for all stakeholders involved in research, policy formulation and product development. 4. Focus on creating, improving and linking Wikidata items for under-represented botanists—including women, LGBTQ+, BIPOC, indigenous, and other minorities—as well as under-represented institutions and collections, particularly those from the Global South. Follow ethical and legal guidelines for contributing such data to Wikidata. 5. Recognizing Biocultural Diversity: participants call for improved recognition and support for biocultural diversity, including the co-production of knowledge and bringing together diverse knowledge systems, methodologies and stakeholders. 5. Harness our botanical, cultural and language knowledge to add multilingual information, translations, links and references to Wikidata items for botanists, plant taxa, institutions, publications, locations of research expeditions and resources. Offer and participate in multilingual Wikidata workshops, videos and online resources, particularly in the Global South. 6. Plant Diversity is Central to Ecosystem Protection and Restoration: participants call for conservation and restoration strategies that prioritize plant diversity while protecting the functioning of ecosystems and landscapes. 6. Add all national and regional parks, reserves, and other areas in need of protection or restoration to Wikidata, and link to locality coordinates, habitat information, etc., and legal, policy and research publications supporting protection and restoration of these ecosystems. 7. Policy Based on Sound Knowledge About Plants: participants call for evidence-based decision-making with improved integration of botanical knowledge into sustainable long-term policy decisions. 7. Use Wikidata to help facilitate multilingual and multidisciplinary collaborations to improve the accessibility and reusability of botanical knowledge including for policy decisions. Where possible, publish papers and reports as Open Access as Wikidata can amplify the impact of these publications to ensure sound policy decisions. 8. Harnessing Nature-based Solutions: participants call for the increased recognition and implementation of diverse nature-based solutions that maximize species diversity, increase resilience to climate change, enhance plant conservation and encourage sustainable management and ecosystem restoration. 8. Participate in Wikidata WikiProject Climate Change (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/ Wikidata:WikiProject_Climate_Change) and related WikiProjects to increase recognition and implementation of nature-based solutions. 9. A Stronger Role of Plants in Achieving Sustainability and a Net Zero Economy: participants call for an increased recognition of the role of plants in achieving sustainability and establishing a net-zero economy. 9. Use Wikidata to collaborate with other Wikimedians working on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, including joining Wikimedians for Sustainable Development (https:// meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_for_Sustainable_Development). 10. Increasing Awareness of the Centrality of Plants for Planetary Health and Resilience: participants call for increased awareness of the importance of plants for planetary health and resilience. 10. Improve the visibility of plants in Wikidata through engagement with appropriate Wikidata WikiProjects (e.g. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Botany and https:// www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Biodiversity). Use Wikidata to promote planetary health information (e.g. Matos et al., 2024; the LOTUS initiative, Rutz et al., 2022a). 507 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/136/3/491/8158086 by The Wikipedia Library user on 02 October 2025 von Mering et al. — Wikidata for botanists 18 In Wikidata, both the ontology of the database—including its properties, as a Wikidata property proposal (Q114746893)—as well as the data itself are all editable by the community. This property was therefore proposed to the Wikidata community for creation after consultations with biodiversity data experts and colleagues from different natural history collections (https:// www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Property_proposal/collection_items_at, date last accessed, 15 May 2025). It was accepted by the Wikidata community and is now widely used in Wikidata to link people or expeditions with institutions or collections housing specimens gathered by these people or during these collecting events. The modelling of taxonomic data continues to develop in Wikidata with the recent creation of such properties as taxon synonym of (P12763) and basionym of (P12766) assisting with the enriching of botanical-related items (Fig. 9). Collaborations can ensure these properties are used more frequently and consistently, leading to richer botanical-related taxonomic data being integrated into Wikidata. Such data models also facilitate the better integration of and linking to large botanical databases such as IPNI and WFO. In times of machine learning and AI, availability and easy accessibility of high-quality open data are important as free training data and for the verification of information. Data in open and community-curated platforms such as Wikidata are becoming more and more important when thinking about knowledge equity (Schuster, 2024). A project by Wikimedia Deutschland (WMDE) aims to facilitate the use of open data from Wikidata by open-source initiatives and non-profit AI projects (Schuster, 2024). Wikidata is used for fact-checking and verification, e.g. by combining structured data in its knowledge graph with large language models (LLMs; e.g. Thornton et al., 2022). LLMs can also help to accelerate access to scholarly data hidden in unstructured datasets and make them more sustainably accessible via Wikidata (e.g. Mihindukulasooriya et al., 2024). Getting started in Wikidata for botanists and botanical institutions As an open and collaborative community, Wikidata empowers anyone to contribute and help to fill gaps, e.g. by adding information about botanists, botanical institutions, botanical taxa, etc. This can be the addition of small but important pieces of information such as a year of birth or death of a botanist, linking to the institution that holds archival material to the relevant botanist, adding the geolocation information for a botanical institute, and so on. Contributions can also be the batch or bulk upload of larger curated datasets, e.g. data about a botanical collection and its related collection agents. Every editor’s level of engagement with Wikidata varies over time, but every contribution, whether small or large, improves Wikidata. As an individual, it is relatively easy to start manually editing Wikidata by making use of the many training materials available in multiple languages, including online tutorials (e.g. https://www.learnwikidata.net/, date last accessed, 15 May 2025), guidelines (Bauer et al., 2022), publications (e.g. Shafee et al., 2023; Leachman and Mabry, 2024) and resources available on Wikidata itself (e.g. https://www.wikidata. org/wiki/Wikidata:Tours and https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/ Wikidata:WikiProject_IBC_2024/Resources, date last accessed, 15 May 2025). Individuals are also able to edit in bulk using tools such as QuickStatements or OpenRefine. They are also encouraged to reach out to the Wikidata editing community to collaborate on botany-related projects to improve Wikidata. Connecting with fellow editors can take the form of attending in person or virtual Wiki meetups found locally, signing up to and engaging with relevant WikiProjects (such as https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/ Wikidata:WikiProject_Botany, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/ Wikidata:WikiProject_Taxonomy and https://www.wikidata. org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Biodiversity, date last accessed, 15 May 2025) or other collaborations, such as Wikidata edit-a-thons, hackathons or conferences. Botany institutions are encouraged to add their data to Wikidata (e.g. Lemus-Rojas and Lee, 2020). Institutions can also collaborate with the Wikidata community to create Wikidata properties for any appropriate institutional identifiers in order to link to the institution’s data in Wikidata (see Wikidata search https://bit.ly/3P1GqCy, date last accessed, 15 May 2025). Institutions can make use of the many tools available (such as Mix’n’match) to assist in the ingesting and linking of an institution’s data. Roundtripping data via Wikidata Institutions are also encouraged to roundtrip data from Wikidata. Data roundtripping (Q108684293) is the process of using, reusing, enriching and updating data from one database and then integrating that same data into another. By adding links to appropriate Wikidata items in their collection management systems and on their websites, botany institutions can accelerate the accessibility and impact of their botany-related data. Should they be willing to do so, institutions are also able to ingest any needed information sourced from these Wikidata items into their own websites and collection management systems (e.g. BHL; Dearborn and Leachman, 2023). To support organizations in engaging with Wikidata, the Wikidata page Linked Open Data workflow (https://www. wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Linked_open_data_workflow, date last accessed, 15 May 2025) gives an overview of the steps that can be taken by the institution, and lists tools and scripts that can be used in the process of preparing, reconciling, ingesting, analysing, reusing and reporting of the impact of the data. It focuses on tools that are especially useful to galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM institutions, Q1030034; see also https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/ Wikidata:GLAM, date last accessed, 15 May 2025). How to integrate Wikidata in the classroom Wikidata and Bionomia can also be easily integrated into university courses and can be used to support research undertaken by master’s and doctoral students. There are many online tutorials and other open educational resources (OER, Q116781) available that support teaching about these tools. Two modules that were recently developed as part of a course-based research experience (CURE) focus on Wikidata and Bionomia, respectively (Leachman and Mabry, 2024; Mabry et al., 2024). 508 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/136/3/491/8158086 by The Wikipedia Library user on 02 October 2025 von Mering et al. — Wikidata for botanists 19 Some ethical and legal considerations when contributing to Wikidata Contributors to Wikidata should consider both ethical and legal guidelines and obligations when contributing to Wikidata. For example, when adding data to Wikidata, it is good practice to add authoritative, accessible and relevant references to all statements to allow any user to verify the information underlying the respective statements (Wikidata, 2025b). There are several initiatives within the Wikidata community to increase the number and quality of references on Wikidata statements, which would strengthen their validity, verifiability and reliability, and that of Wikidata as a whole (e.g. Piscopo et al., 2017; Curotto and Hogan, 2020; Bauer et al., 2022). When dealing with Wikidata items for under-represented botanists, it is often a challenge to find any references. In these cases, we believe it is better to provide unreferenced data or non-authoritative sources, as including these helps to surface additional information about under-represented people. Copyright licensing must also be taken into account. Since Wikidata adheres to a CC0 licence, this makes it difficult to incorporate data with incompatible licensing. Despite these limitations, Wikidata remains a valuable tool for scientific research. Wikidata editors should also follow the guidance given by Wikidata on editing items about themselves, or someone they know or represent (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/ Wikidata:Autobiography). Contributors to Wikidata should consider the ethical and legal obligations that exist to protect a living person’s right to privacy (Lindsey et al., 2022; Weathington and Brubaker, 2023). Wikidata has an agreed policy relating to living people which should also guide contributions (https://www.wikidata. org/wiki/Wikidata:Living_people). In addition, Wikidata editors should consider appropriate CARE principles (Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, and Ethics; https://www.gida-global.org/care, date last accessed, 15 May 2025) (Jennings et al., 2003) when adding or linking indigenous people’s data or data sourced from indigenous communities. Although the authors of this paper have emphasized how Wikidata can facilitate the reuse of botany-related data, we believe this should not be at the expense of the rights indigenous people have to control data sourced from their communities, nor should this restrict the application and use of indigenous data and knowledge for the benefit of indigenous communities. CONCLUSIONS We argue that Wikidata is a key and timely platform that can and should support botany, botanists and botanical institutions, and the botany community’s collective goals and strategic actions. To achieve this, we botanists need to actively participate in Wikidata digital outreach. By steadily, deliberately and collaboratively improving the quality, quantity and linkages of botany-related data in Wikidata, botanists can— via individual and collective actions—harness the power of Linked Open Data to answer important queries in the field, support the Madrid Declaration strategic actions (Table 1) and ultimately make botany-related information more FAIR and equitable. Collaboration is key in botany and Wikidata, and sharing Linked Open Data benefits us all. FUNDING This work was supported by the following organizations, who funded travel expenses and conference attendance for our Wikidata for Botanists workshop at the XX International Botanical Congress in Madrid, Spain, in July 2024: Wikimedia Foundation (for S.L. and S.v.M.); Wikimedia España (for Spanish Wikimedian Tomás Saorín Pérez); Te Papa (for H.M.M.); and FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, I.P., in the framework of the Project UIDB/04004/2020 and DOI identifier 10.54499/UIDB/04004/2020 (for J.S.). Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand provided funds for workshop bookmarks, while giveaways for the workshop were supplied by Wikimedia Deutschland and Wikimedia España. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We thank Gitte Petersen and a second associate editor at the Annals of Botany for inviting us to contribute this article based on our IBC 2024 poster, ‘Engaging with Wikidata: Benefits and impacts for botanists and institutions’ (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11102530). We thank David Shorthouse for building Bionomia and for discussing its reuse of Wikidata data with us, and Daniel Mietchen for help with some SPARQL queries and for sharing insights into Scholia. We also thank the Wikimedia Foundation for financially supporting S.L. and S.v.M. to attend IBC 2024. Furthermore, we thank the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive criticism which improved the previous version of the manuscript. AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS All authors contributed equally to all aspects of this paper: conceptualization, data curation, funding acquisition, project administration, resources, supervision, validation, visualization, writing – original draft preparation, and writing – review and editing. LITERATURE CITED Agosti D, Egloff W. 2009. Taxonomic information exchange and copyright: the Plazi approach. BMC Research Notes 2: 53–9. http://www.wikidata. org/entity/Q20650433. Antonelli A, Teisher JK, Smith RJ, et al. 2024. The 2030 Declaration on Scientific Plant and Fungal Collecting. Plants, People, Planet 7: 11–22 (Q130393475). Atlas of Living Australia. 2024. Oxalidaceae R.Br. https://bie.ala.org.au/species/ https://id.biodiversity.org.au/taxon/apni/51442069 (15 May 2025, date last accessed). Auge G, Sunil RS, Ingle RA, Rahul PV, Mutwil M, Estevez JM. 2024. Current challenges for plant biology research in the Global South. New Phytologist 244: 1168–1174 http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q130393493. Bauer J, Burkhalter R, Karim T, et al. 2022. Guidelines for using Wikidata to mobilize information about people in collections: a paleontology perspective. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.6977243. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/ Q131469364 Belbin L, Wallis E, Hobern D, Zerger A. 2021. The Atlas of Living Australia: history, current state and future directions. Biodiversity Data Journal 9: e65023. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q107459418 Berners-Lee T. 2006. Linked Data. Design Issues. W3C. http://www.w3.org/ DesignIssues/LinkedData.html (15 May 2025, date last accessed) http:// www.wikidata.org/entity/Q60541338. Berners-Lee T, Hendler J, Lassila O. 2001. The Semantic Web: a new form of Web content that is meaningful to computers will unleash a revolution of new possibilities. Scientific American 284: 34–43. http://www.wikidata. org/entity/Q29164671 509 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/136/3/491/8158086 by The Wikipedia Library user on 02 October 2025 von Mering et al. — Wikidata for botanists 20 BHL. 2025. Biodiversity Heritage Library. https://www.biodiversitylibrary. org/ (15 May 2025, date last accessed) http://www.wikidata.org/entity/ Q172266 Cabral FS, Lima DF, Vaio M, Fiaschi P. 2024. Molecular phylogenetics of Oxalis subg. Thamnoxys (Oxalidaceae) reveals artificial arrangements of traditional sections. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 204: 174– 186. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q131228674 Centelles M, Ferran-Ferrer N. 2024. Assessing knowledge organization systems from a gender perspective: Wikipedia taxonomy and Wikidata ontologies. Journal of Documentation 80: 124–147. http://www.wikidata. org/entity/Q125466117 Curotto P, Hogan A. 2020. Suggesting citations for Wikidata claims based on Wikipedia’s external references. In: Kaffee LA, Tifria-Markiusca O, Simperl E, Vrandečić D. eds. Proceedings of The 1st Wikidata Workshop, Wikidata@ISWC. CUER Workshop Proceedings 2773, paper 15. https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2773/paper-15.pdf. http://www.wikidata.org/ entity/Q100979895 Dearborn JJ, Leachman S. 2023. BHL is round tripping persistent identifiers with the Wikidata Query Service. Biodiversity Heritage Library Blog. https://blog. biodiversitylibrary.org/2023/02/round-tripping-persistent-identifiers-withwikidata-query-service.html (15 May 2025, date last accessed). Erxleben F, Günther M, Krötzsch M, Mendez J, Vrandečić D. 2014. Introducing Wikidata to the Linked Data Web. In: Mika P, Tudorache T, Bernstein A, et al. eds. The Semantic Web – ISWC 2014. ISWC 2014. Lecture notes in computer science, Vol. 8796. Cham: Springer, 50–65 http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q27036465 GBIF. 2025. Global biodiversity information facility. https://www.gbif. org (15 May 2025, date last accessed) http://www.wikidata.org/entity/ Q1531570 Geoffroy M, Berendsohn WG. 2003. The concept problem in taxonomy: importance, components, approaches. In: Berendsohn WG. ed. MoReTax - Handling factual information linked to taxonomic concepts in biology. Federal Agency for Nature Conservation http://www.wikidata.org/entity/ Q133266047 Groom Q, Güntsch A, Huybrechts P, et al. 2020. People are essential to linking biodiversity data. Database 2020: baaa072. http://www.wikidata. org/entity/Q104815631 Groom Q, Bräuchler C, Cubey RWN, et al. 2022. The disambiguation of people names in biological collections. Biodiversity Data Journal 10: e86089. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q114570605 GRSciColl. 2025. Global registry of scientific collections. https://scientificcollections.gbif.org/ (15 May 2025, date last accessed) http://www. wikidata.org/entity/Q98594614 Güntsch A, Groom Q, Ernst M, et al. 2021. A botanical demonstration of the potential of linking data using unique identifiers for people. PLOS ONE 16: e0261130. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q110112164 Hüllbusch E, Güntsch A, Luther K, et al. 2024. A concept-aware API for the taxonomic checklist infrastructure in Germany. Biodiversity Information Science and Standards 8: e135846. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q130469766 IPNI. 2025. International Plant Names Index. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Harvard University Herbaria & Libraries and Australian National Herbarium. http://www.ipni.org (15 May 2025, date last accessed) http:// www.wikidata.org/entity/Q922063 Jennings L, Anderson T, Martinez A, et al. 2003. Applying the ‘CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance’ to ecology and biodiversity research. Nature Ecology and Evolution 7: 1547–1551. http://www. wikidata.org/entity/Q126722349 Kaiser K, von Mering S. 2024. Making connections. Open data for transdisciplinary provenance research on collections from colonial contexts. Senckenberg Monographs 1: 75–84. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/ Q131378088 Kaiser K, Heumann I, Nadim T, et al. 2023. Promises of mass digitisation and the colonial realities of natural history collections. Journal of Natural Science Collections 11: 13–25. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/ Q123035844 Knapp S. 2024. Why botany? Why now? Opening lecture of the XX International Botanical Congress, Madrid, Spain, July 2024. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=eFYaPAUsh9A (15 May 2025, date last accessed). Las-Casas F, Azevedo Júnior S, Dias Filho M. 2012. The community of hummingbirds (Aves: Trochilidae) and the assemblage of flowers in a Caatinga vegetation. Brazilian Journal of Biology 72: 51–58. http://www. wikidata.org/entity/Q83716749 Leachman S, Mabry M. 2024. Integrating Wikidata with data sleuthing techniques for enhanced knowledge discovery of hidden figures. BCEENET - Biological Collections in Ecology & Evolution Network, QUBES Educational Resources. doi:10.25334/25Z7-9278. http://www.wikidata. org/entity/Q131469414 Leachman S, Schrader L. 2024. Delving into Te Papa research expedition data. Biodiversity Information Science and Standards 8: e135809. http:// www.wikidata.org/entity/Q130212138 Lemus-Rojas M, Lee YY. 2020. Using Wikidata to provide visibility to women in STEM. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications. Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. doi:10.23106/DCMI.952141879. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/ Q120636766 Lemus-Rojas M, Odell JD, Brys LF, Ramírez Rojas M. 2022. Leveraging Wikidata to build scholarly profiles as service. KULA Knowledge Creation Dissemination, and Preservation Studies 6: 1–14. doi:10.18357/ KULA.171. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q113399929 Lepage D, Vaidya G, Guralnick R. 2014. Avibase – a database system for managing and organizing taxonomic concepts. ZooKeys 420: 117–135 http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q22680724 Lindsey N, Kuriger Suiter G, Hanselman K. 2022. Ethical considerations of including gender information in open knowledge platforms. KULA Knowledge Creation, Dissemination, and Preservation Studies 6: 1–15. doi:10.18357/kula.228. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q113730447 Lourteig A. 1994. Oxalis L. subgénero Thamnoxys (Endl.) Reiche emend. Lourteig. Bradea 7: 1–199. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/ Q119725818 Lucena RF, Albuquerque UP, Monteiro JM, Almeida CD, Florentino AT, Ferraz JS 2007. Useful plants of the semi-arid northeastern region of Brazil – a look at their conservation and sustainable use. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 125: 281–290. http://www.wikidata.org/ entity/Q33269033 Mabry M, Flemming A, Phillips M, Zeringue-Krosnick SE, Kovacs J, Leachman S. 2024. Introduction to Bionomia. BCEENET - Biological Collections in Ecology & Evolution Network, QUBES Educational Resources. doi:10.25334/AXVE-E198. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/ Q131469386 Martini F. 2023. Notable enough? The questioning of women’s biographies on Wikipedia. Feminist Media Studies 24: 1877–1893 http://www.wikidata. org/entity/Q123423404 Matos HGC, Cardoso MF, Cruz P, Arrigo A, Morata T, Corteletti L. 2024. Planetary health through Wikimedia projects: descriptive analysis of a gateway for an internet-based approach in education and dissemination [poster presentation]. In: Planetary Health Annual Meeting Malaysia (PHAM) 2024. doi:10.13140/RG.2.2.10413.70884. von Mering S, Gardiner LM, Knapp S, et al. 2023a. Creating a multi-linked dynamic: a case study of plant genera named for women. Biodiversity Data Journal 11: e114408. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q123691673 von Mering S, Braun PJ-C, Cubey RWN, et al. 2023b. Modelling research expeditions in Wikidata: best practice for standardisation and contextualisation. Biodiversity Information Science and Standards 7: e111427. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q121814308 von Mering S, Leachman S, Santos J, Meudt H. 2024a. Engaging with Wikidata: benefits and impacts for botanists and institutions. In: XX International Botanical Congress, Madrid, Spain. doi:10.5281/ zenodo.11102530. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q127423907 von Mering S, Stolze E, Kaiser K, Petersen M. 2024b. Sharing data, caring for collections. Open data on collection agents affiliated with the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. Research Ideas and Outcomes 10: e118851. http:// www.wikidata.org/entity/Q125938084 von Mering S, Cubey RWN, Endresen D, et al. 2024c. Advancing community curation of research expeditions: a collaborative journey with Wikidata and Biodiversity Information Standards. Biodiversity Information Science and Standards 8: e138921. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q130718669 Milliken W, Walker BE, Howes M-JR, Forest F, Nic Lughadha E. 2021. Plants used traditionally as antimalarials in Latin America: mining the tree of life for potential new medicines [supplementary material]. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 279: 114221. http://www.wikidata.org/ entity/Q131378066 Mihindukulasooriya N, Tiwari S, Dobriy D, Nielsen FÅ, Chhetri TR, Polleres A. 2024. Scholarly Wikidata: Population and Exploration of Conference Data in Wikidata Using LLMs. Knowledge Engineering 510 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/136/3/491/8158086 by The Wikipedia Library user on 02 October 2025 von Mering et al. — Wikidata for botanists 21 and Knowledge Management 15370: 243–259. doi:10.1007/978-3-03177792-9_15. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q130361570 Morshed M. 2024. Using Wikidata lexemes and items to generate text from abstract representations. Semantic Web 15: 2319–2332. http://www. wikidata.org/entity/Q130478475 Nascimento AS, Carvalho CA, Martins ML. 2014. Plants visited by Apis mellifera L. (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in Recôncavo Baiano, State of Bahia, Brazil. Revista de Agricultura 89: 97–116. http://www.wikidata.org/ entity/Q131228829 National Library of Medicine. 2025. Oxalis psoraleoides subsp. insipida. NCBI Taxonomy ID 3051316. Bethesda: National Center for Biotechnology Information. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/datasets/taxonomy/3051316/ (15 May 2025, date last accessed). Nielsen FÅ. 2019. Languages/Wikidata lexemes. Workshop abstract, Wikimania 2019, Stockholm, Sweden. https://wikimania.wikimedia. org/wiki/2019:Languages/Wikidata_lexemes (15 May 2025, date last accessed). Nielsen FÅ, Mietchen D, Willighagen E. 2017. Scholia, scientometrics and Wikidata. In: Blomqvist E, Hose K, Paulheim H, Ławrynowicz A, Ciravegna F, Hartig O. eds. The Semantic Web: ESWC 2017 Satellite Events: ESWC 2017 Satellite Events, Portorož, Slovenia, May 28–June 1, 2017, Revised Selected Papers 14. Cham: Springer, 237–259 http://www. wikidata.org/entity/Q41799194 Odell J, Lemus-Rojas M, Brys L. 2022. Wikidata and gender equity in publishing. In: Odell J, Lemus-Rojas M, Brys L. eds. Wikidata for scholarly communication librarianship. doi:10.7912/8spa-6s68. http://www. wikidata.org/entity/Q132532597 ORCID. 2025. Open researcher and contributor identifier. https://orcid. org/ (15 May 2025, date last accessed) http://www.wikidata.org/entity/ Q12350875 Page RDM. 2013. BioNames: linking taxonomy, texts, and trees. PeerJ 1: e190 http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q28661767 Page RDM. 2022. Wikidata and the bibliography of life. PeerJ 10: e13712 http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q112959127 Page RDM. 2023. Ten years and a million links: building a global taxonomic library connecting persistent identifiers for names, publications and people. Biodiversity Data Journal 11: e107914. http://www.wikidata.org/ entity/Q124622656 Piscopo A, Kaffee L-A, Phethean C, Simperl E. 2017. Provenance information in a collaborative knowledge graph: an evaluation of Wikidata external references. In: D’Amato C, Fernandez M, Tamma V, Lecu F, Cudré-Maroux P, Sequeda J, et al. eds. The Semantic Web. International Semantic Web Conference 2017. Cham: Springer, 542–558. http://www. wikidata.org/entity/Q37135780 Rasberry L, Willighagen E, Nielsen F, Mietchen D. 2019. Robustifying Scholia: paving the way for knowledge discovery and research assessment through Wikidata. Research Ideas and Outcomes 5: e35820. http://www. wikidata.org/entity/Q63433973 Remsen D. 2016. The use and limits of scientific names in biological informatics. ZooKeys 55: 207–223. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q22117525 ROR. 2025. Research Organization Registry. https://ror.org/ (15 May 2025, date last accessed) http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q110235640 Rutz A, Sorokina M, Galgonek J, et al. 2022a. The LOTUS initiative for open knowledge management in natural products research. eLife 11: e70780. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q112143478 Rutz A, Sorokina M, Galgonek J et al. 2022b. LOTUS, natural products online. https://lotus.naturalproducts.net/ (15 May 2025, date last accessed) http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q104225190 Santos J. 2025. Expeditia. Research expeditions on Wikidata with itineraries. https://www.expeditia.info (15 May 2025, date last accessed) http://www. wikidata.org/entity/Q131467228 Schuster C. 2024. Wikidata and artificial intelligence: simplified access to open data for open-source projects. https://blog.wikimedia.de/2024/09/17/ wikidata-and-artificial-intelligence-simplified-access-to-open-data-foropen-source-projects/ (15 May 2025, date last accessed). Shafee T, Mietchen D, Lubiana T, Jemielniak D, Waagmeester A. 2023. Ten quick tips for editing Wikidata. PLOS Computational Biology 19: e1011235. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q120765481 Shaik Z, Ilievski F, Morstatter F. 2021. Analyzing race and citizenship bias in Wikidata. In: 2021 IEEE 18th International Conference on Mobile Ad Hoc and Smart Systems (MASS), 665–666. http://www.wikidata.org/ entity/Q123561457 Shorthouse DP. 2020a. Bionomia: link natural history specimens to the world’s collectors. https://bionomia.net (15 May 2025, date last accessed) http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q64446405 Shorthouse DP. 2020b. Slinging with four giants on a quest to credit natural historians for our museums and collections. Biodiversity Information Science and Standards 4: e59167. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q114722474 TDWG. 2025. Biodiversity Information Standards. https://www.tdwg.org/ (15 May 2025, date last accessed) http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q4914768 Thiers BM. 2025 (updated continuously). Index Herbariorum. https:// sweetgum.nybg.org/science/ih/ (15 May 2025, date last accessed) http:// www.wikidata.org/entity/Q11712089 Thomas C. 2009. Biodiversity databases spread, prompting unification call. Science 324: 1632–1633 http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q56744145 Thornton K, Seals-Nutt K. 2018. Science stories: using IIIF and Wikidata to create a linked-data application. In: Srinivas K, Fortuna C, Atre M, van Erp M, Lopez V. eds. CEUR Workshop Proceedings, Vol. 2180, paper 68. http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2180/paper-68.pdf http://www.wikidata.org/entity/ Q57273080 Thornton K, Seals-Nutt K, Van Remoortel M, Birkholz JM, De Potter P. 2022. Linking women editors of periodicals to the Wikidata knowledge graph. Semantic Web 14: 443–455. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/ Q106474577. tl2.io. 2025. tl2.io, a digital version of Taxonomic literature: a selective guide to botanical publications and collections with dates, commentaries and types, 2nd edn [usually abbreviated TL-2]. https://tl2.io (15 May 2025, date last accessed) http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q131481057 Tropicos. 2025. Tropicos. Missouri Botanical Garden. https://tropicos.org (15 May 2025, date last accessed) http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q2578548 Turki H, Taieb MAH, Aouicha MB, Rasberry L, Mietchen D. 2024. Ten years of Wikidata: a bibliometric study. In: Kaffee LA, Razniewski S, Alghamdi K, Arnaout H. eds. Proceedings of the Wikidata Workshop 2023 co-located with 22nd International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2023). Athens: CEUR. https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3640/paper13.pdf (15 May 2025, date last accessed) http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q129832360 Vrandečić D, Krötzsch M. 2014. Wikidata: a free collaborative knowledgebase. Communications of the ACM 57: 78–85. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/ Q18507561 Vrandečić S, Pintscher L, Krötzsch M. 2023. Wikidata: the making of. In: Companion Proceedings of the ACM Web Conference 2023. Austin: ACM, 615–624. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q118130164 Waagmeester A, Stupp G, Burgstaller-Muehlbacher S, et al. 2020. Wikidata as a knowledge graph for the life sciences. eLife 9: e52614. http://www. wikidata.org/entity/Q87830400 Waagmeester A, Willighagen EL, Su AI, et al. 2021. A protocol for adding knowledge to Wikidata: aligning resources on human coronaviruses. BMC Biology 19: 12 http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q105037759 Weathington K, Brubaker JR. 2023. Queer identities, normative databases: challenges to capturing queerness on Wikidata. In: Nichols J. ed. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 7: 1–26. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q125178154 WFO. 2025. World flora online. http://www.worldfloraonline.org (15 May 2025, date last accessed) http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q77076820 Wikidata. 2025a. Wikidata:RDF. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/ Wikidata:RDF (15 May 2025, date last accessed). Wikidata. 2025b. Help:Sources. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Help:Sources (15 May 2025, date last accessed). Wilkinson M, Dumontier M, Aalbersberg I, et al. 2016. The FAIR guiding principles for scientific data management and stewardship. Scientific Data 3: 160018. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q27942822 XX International Botanical Congress. 2024. The Madrid Declaration. https://ibcmadrid2024.com/docs/press/7.pdf (15 May 2025, date last accessed) and https://docs.google.com/document/d/19RgJnnqOfgemWf3Ta LBy6YBAJoDynWsasgvwfh3lgxk/edit?tab=t.0 (15 May 2025, date last accessed) http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q133272904 Zhang CC, Terveen L. 2021. Quantifying the gap: a case study of Wikidata gender disparities. In: Robles G, Aroyo J, Barcomb A, Chahal KK, Sowe S, Wang X. eds. Proceedings of the 17th International Symposium on Open Collaboration, Article No. 6. doi:10.1145/3479986.3479992. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q120985278 Zhao F. 2023. A systematic review of Wikidata in digital humanities projects. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 38: 852–874. doi:10.1093/llc/ fqac083. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q116369826 511 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/136/3/491/8158086 by The Wikipedia Library user on 02 October 2025