Conservation of rare species requires understanding the environmental drivers and geographic extent of population occurrence and persistence. Maintaining diversity within plant communities increases ecosystem resiliency in the face of climate change and threats from land use.

Herbarium records represent an accessible and reliable source of occurrence data but sampling biases and error must be addressed for successful species distribution modeling. Methods to deal with bias and error are not always appropriate for rare taxa. I will address the role of species distribution modeling in applied conservation planning, the limitations of available data, and the potential alternatives to address rare plant conservation.