Recovering plant-associated arthropod communities by eDNA metabarcoding historical herbarium specimens.

Natural history collections are a priceless resource for understanding patterns and processes of biodiversity change in the Anthropocene. Herbaria, which house millions of historical plant records from all over the globe, are particularly valuable to study population genetics of the plants themselves and to understand the assembly of plant-associated microbial communities. Here we test if herbaria can serve yet another essential purpose, namely to provide information on the historical assembly of plant-arthropod interactions.