DNA Barcoding

How many species exist on Earth?

Nov 7th

Posted by Melissa Lee in DNA Barcoding

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How many species exist on Earth? Well, no one really knows exactly, but there are some reasonable estimates. One figure, estimated by the Census of Marine Life Scientists, is posited to be at 8.7 million based on taxonomic methodology.  Of this 8.7 million, at least 85% of the species on land and in sea still have yet to be identified and cataloged. It is amazing to think that we only know about 15% of the life found on Earth.  There remains much to be discovered.

Recently, researchers at the Smithsonian used the method of DNA barcoding to identify 168 crab species  More >

Pinus strobus EOL

The Encyclopedia of Life

Oct 14th

Posted by Oscar Pineda-Catalan in DNA Barcoding

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Documenting the biological diversity of our planet is a challenging task. It implies information collection and organization of millions of species, their genetic diversity and their interactions in biological communities and ecosystems. It also implies coordination among multiple institutions and thousands of scientists, environmentalists, and professionals working with biodiversity.

In 2007, Dr. Edward O. Wilson’s speech as the recipient of the TED Prize potentiated the creation of the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), an international effort to gather together all human knowledge of Earth’s biodiversity.  EOL’s mission is “to increase awareness and understanding of living nature through an encyclopedia that gathers, generates, More >

Got a shovel?

Oct 5th

Posted by Melissa Lee in DNA Barcoding

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In the field of forensics, scientists can tell the story of how, when and where certain outdoor crimes occurred by analyzing the soil and its contents.  One of its contents includes DNA.  DNA from the victim or suspect can be recovered from the soil at a crime scene. In addition, DNA from other animals can be recovered in these same locations as animals slough off cells from their skin and waste.

According to a recent study in Molecular Ecology, scientists have shown that DNA fragments found in the soil can not only determine what species occupy a given area, but also More >

Fungi_of_Saskatchewan Wikipedia

How Many Species are on Earth?

Sep 16th

Posted by Oscar Pineda-Catalan in DNA Barcoding

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For several years scientists have tried to estimate the number of species living on Earth. This is not an easy question to answer and multiple approaches have been developed to calculate how large Earth’s biodiversity is. All of the estimates obtained so far have a large prediction range, hundreds of thousands or even millions of species from the smallest estimates to the largest ones. On top of this shaming ignorance, our planet’s biodiversity is highly threatened. Solid evidence indicates that we are facing a massive extinction event, driven unfortunately by our own activities. The most recent evidence indicates that a More >

barcode-logo

Welcome to the DNA Barcoding Blog!

Sep 7th

Posted by Melissa Lee in DNA Barcoding

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Welcome to our new DNA barcoding blog.  It truly is an exciting time to be involved in this aspect of genomic science as DNA barcoding has been used to identify new species, help explain the biodiversity of our planet and even detect food fraud.  Just as a universal product code (UPC) identifies an item for sale in a store, a DNA barcode uniquely identifies each species of living thing.  The DNA barcoding technique includes extraction of DNA from an organism of interest, ampliflication of this DNA through PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction), and sequencing of the DNA at specific locations in More >

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