The Living Library of Trees: Mapping Knowledge Ecology in the Arnold Arboretum

2025-08-28

AI Summary

Amid accelerating biodiversity loss and climate change, botanical gardens urgently need to transform their long-term plant management records, scientific observations, and human–plant interaction data into actionable, interpretable knowledge. This study leverages the century-old archival collections of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University to propose a “shared agency” framework and the concept of a “more-than-human knowledge archive.” Integrating historical analysis, AI-driven cross-modal data integration (herbarium specimens, staff logs, environmental and geospatial datasets), and information design, we construct a dynamic, interactive knowledge ecosystem map. The platform systematically uncovers human–nonhuman collaborative networks in plant care, collective labor memory, and situated knowledge co-production—establishing semantic bridges between historical documentation and future conservation practice. It significantly enhances public understanding of the deep interconnections between biodiversity conservation and scientific praxis.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: Planning and Decision Support for Human-Machine Teams
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Web
• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science

Application Category

• Semantics and Knowledge: Data modeling to support human-machine intelligence, including LLMs agents, intelligent system behavior, explanations, and user-friendly interactions
• Security and Privacy: Data transparency and provenance
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: The sharing economy

Abstract

As biodiversity loss and climate change accelerate, botanical gardens serve as vital infrastructures for research, education, and conservation. This project focuses on the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, a 281-acre living museum founded in 1872 in Boston. Drawing on more than a century of curatorial data, the research combines historical analysis with computational methods to visualize the biographies of plants and people. The resulting platform reveals patterns of care and scientific observations, along with the collective dimensions embedded in botanical data. Using techniques from artificial intelligence, geospatial mapping, and information design, the project frames the arboretum as a system of shared agency--an active archive of more-than-human affinities that records the layered memory of curatorial labor, the situated nature of knowledge production, and the potential of design to bridge archival record and future care.

Problem

• Mapping botanical knowledge ecology using historical and computational methods
• Visualizing plant and human biographies through AI and geospatial techniques
• Bridging archival records with future conservation through design frameworks

Innovation

• Combining historical analysis with computational visualization methods
• Using AI, geospatial mapping, and information design techniques
• Creating platform revealing patterns in botanical care data