The Botanical Garden of the University of Fribourg has formally joined the DBGI network, building on its role in the initiative’s earliest pilot phase. It provided one of the first living collections in which DBGI’s sampling, documentation and traceability workflows could be developed in practice.
The garden maintains more than 5,000 plant species across thematic collections, an arboretum and three publicly accessible greenhouses. At its heart, the “System” collection is organised according to the APG IV classification and contains more than 1,100 species representing 140 plant families. This taxonomic breadth, concentrated within an accessible living collection, makes Fribourg particularly well suited to systematic chemical sampling.
Gregor Kozlowski, director of the garden, and Alain Müller, its technical head, have helped the project access the collections and adapt DBGI procedures to the practical requirements of a working botanical garden.
Working with the COMMONS Lab at the University of Fribourg, the partnership connects living specimens with traceable plant material, chemical extracts, mass spectrometry data and reusable open knowledge. The work in Fribourg provides a practical foundation for workflows that can be adapted and applied across other gardens in the DBGI network.
