Canadian Barcode of Life Network
Website: http://www.bolnet.ca/
Summary
DNA barcodes use a small fragment of an organism’s DNA - a portion of a single gene - to identify the species to which an organism belongs. These powerful tools can help catalogue biodiversity. The process began in Canada, and scientists here continue to lead international work aiming to catalogue the earth’s life forms completely.
Dr. Paul Hebert, an evolutionary biologist and Director of the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario at the University of Guelph, is project leader of the Canadian Barcode of Life Network.
It has taken scientists 250 years to catalogue some 15% of the world’s biodiversity. But with many species now under threat, the network seeks to develop comprehensive DNA barcode libraries first of all the world’s birds and fishes, and then of other animals, fungi, plants, and protists.
This project is developing a DNA-based identification system that can catalogue all species. Because this and other barcoding projects should generate a flood of new data, the network is also creating an advanced databasing system to aid storage and analysis of barcode records.
Participants hope that the project will spur development of hand-held barcoders. These devices could then assist bioprospectors in rapid identification of thousands of species potentially able to yield life-saving drugs or to signal the presence of animal and plant organisms in food even after processing.
The network will initially barcode groups of particular economic and social interest in Canada, before examining environmental samples from a wide range of other species. The project is a vital step towards creation of a complete inventory of biodiversity in Canada - the first inventory of its kind anywhere.
This project includes integrated GE3LS research exploring the impacts of DNA barcoding. For more information, click here.
Significant Outcomes to Date
- In total, the Network has generated more than one hundred research papers and contributed to the training of over forty-eight highly qualified personnel.
- The Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD) is an informatics workbench aiding the acquisition, storage, analysis and publication of DNA barcode records. It has multi-gene support to facilitate plant barcoding, using markers that were selected with input from Canadian Network researchers.
- A special DNA Barcoding issue of Molecular Ecology Resources containing twenty-seven papers was published from Network’s annual Scientific Symposium held at the Royal Ontario Museum in April 2008.
Notable Publications
Smith, MA, Rodriguez, JJ, Whitfield, JB, Deans, AR, Janzen, DH, Hallwachs, W, Hebert, PD. 2008. Extreme diversity of tropical parasitoid wasps exposed by iterative integration of natural history, DNA barcoding, morphology, and collections. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 105(34): 12359-64
Ratnasingham S, Hebert, PDN. 2007. BOLD: The Barcode of Life Data System. Molecular Ecology Notes. 7: 355-364
Seifert, KA, Samson, RA, Dewaard, JR, Houbraken, J, Levesque, CA, Moncalvo, JM, et al. 2007. Prospects for fungus identification using CO1 DNA barcodes, with Penicillium as a test case. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 104(10): 3901-6
Hajibabaei M, Singer GA, Hickey DA. 2007. DNA barcoding: how it complements taxonomy, molecular phylogenetics and population genetics. Trends Genet. 23: 167-72
