32 lichenologists from 12 European countries met in Steinkjer during the week 3-7 August 2015 for a field excursion and symposium. NorBOL was present and used the opportunity to sample tissue from almost 150 specimens for DNA barcoding, many of them from species of which participants had special competence. The meeting was arranged by the Nordic Lichen Society and was partly funded by the Norwegian Biodiversity Information Centre and NorBOL.
– Einar Timdal, Natural History Museum, UiO.
Participants are sturying lichens at the old Mokk copper mine. Photo Mika Bendiksby (CC-BY).
Jukka Pykälä and Mika Bendiksby sample lichens for DNA barcoding. Photo Einar Timdal (CC-BY).
Is environmental DNA barcoding of water and benthos samples more effective than traditinonal methods in biological monitoring of freshwater ecosystems? This is one of the questions researchers at the NTNU University Museum, BIO, NINA, NIVA and ZFMK wish to answer in the project “Environmental barcoding av aquatic invertebrates (EBAI)”.
A team from the project recently visited Rondane National Park where both water and benthic invertebrates were collected from the River Døråla. The invertebrates were fixed on ethanol while water was filtered through different filter types.
Terje Bongard (NINA) and Karstein Hårsaker (NTNU University Museum) performing kick sampling at Vollen. Photo: Torbjørn Ekrem (CC-BY).
Post doctor Markus Majaneva and PI Torbjørn Ekrem at the NTNU University Museum reports on a very successful fieldwork where not even strong winds and rain could stop filtering of the water samples in the mobile laboratory (in the back of a car). The first results from the experiments are expected towards the end of 2015 or the beginning of 2016.
Filtering water. Photo Torbjørn Ekrem (CC-BY).
The project is funded by the Research Council of Norway and the Norwegian Environment Agency.
Gunnhild Marthinsen (Natural History Museum Oslo) and Aina Mærk Aspaas (NTNU University Museum) visited Station Linné on Öland in June/July 2015 to sample insects from the Swedish Malaise Trap Project. As part of the collaboration between NorBOL and the Swedish Barcode of Life Initiative (SweBOL), the two barcode managers wanted to sample Nordic insect species that had not already been barcoded from Norway.
Aina Mærk Aspaas samples insect legs on Station Linné. Photo: Gunnhild Marthinsen.
By the end of a short week, Aina and Gunnhild had sampled and photographed nearly 600 insects. The samples will be shipped to the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario for DNA analyses in August and results are expected later this autumn.
Gunnhild Marthinsen photographs hymenoptera on Station Linné. Photo: Aina Mærk Aspaas.
Thanks to Pelle Magnusson and Dave Karlsson for all help at the station!
Tromsø Univeristy Museum has activities for children every Sunday. On Sunday May 10 this activity was on DNA barcoding and bird-strikes! Even though the weather was good outside, many children visited the museum to play detectives.
The background story is that a bird has struck an air-plane, but all that is left is this feather. Which bird species could it be? With a barcode string of letters from the feather, the children had to search the exhibition for a bird with matching DNA barcode. When found, they could build a barcode of “jelly-men”, each letter corresponding to a certain colour. Exactly 8 of them fit on the stick and made a great treat.
The Norwegian Biodiversity Information Centre and the Norwegian Barcode of Life Network (NorBOL) have the pleasure of inviting you to a symposium on Biodiversity and DNA barcoding in Trondheim November 11-12, 2015. The goal of this conference is to communicate new knowledge on Norwegian species and show how DNA barcoding contributes to our understanding of species diversity, biology and ecology. We think the symposium will be an attractive venue for researchers, student and managers of biodiversity and are pleased to have distinguished speakers from Canada, UK, Finland, Sweden and Norway. Among the confirmed participants are Paul Hebert, Sujeevan Ratnasingham, Natasha de Vere and Tomas Roslin. For more information on the conference, speakers and registration, please visit the symposium website: Biodiversity and DNA barcoding. Welcome!
The organizing committee
Ingrid Salvesen
Ingrid Ertshus Mathisen
Aina Mærk Aspaas
Torbjørn Ekrem
There is an open PhD-position in metabarcoding at the Tromsø University Museum. The PhD position will be connected to two ongoing projects. 1) The Norwegian Barcode of Life (NorBOL): Development of DNA barcodes for vascular plants through low coverage shotgun sequencing of genomic DNA and assemblage of whole plastid DNA genomes, nuclear rDNA and large parts of mitochondrial genome. 2) The After Ice DNA Metabarcoding project (see http://en.uit.no/ansatte/inger.g.alsos) explores the occurrence of boreal species at northern latitudes by ancient DNA analyses using the P6 loop of the plastid DNA trnL (UUA) intron. Lake sediments have been collected at key sites for palaeoenvironmental reconstructions in Norway and Svalbard.
The PhD candidate will bridge these projects by developing laboratory and bioinformatic tools to apply shotgun sequencing on the ancient samples. This will provide valuable data which the candidate will use to explore effects of past climate change on e.g. species turnover, dispersal, extinction, and phylogenetic diversity. In both projects, we collaborate with colleges at the University Joseph Fourier in Grenoble, who run similar projects focused on the Alps, and the candidate is expected to spend a 3-6 month research stay there.
The NTNU University Museum is seeking a highly qualified postdoctoral researcher for a project on environmental barcoding/metabarcoding of freshwater invertebrates. The position is for 3 years, preferably with start June 1, 2015 and is connected to a project funded by the Research Council of Norway and the Norwegian Environment Agency that involves partners from Canada, Germany and Norway.
The Norwegian Barcode of Life initiative is now established as a national research infrastructure for DNA barcoding. As part of the project, four barcode managers were employed in the spring 2014. These enthusiastic persons each sit at one of the university museums in Bergen, Oslo, Tromsø and Trondheim and will be regional contacts, coordinators and support in the development of the barcode library of the Norwegian fauna, flora and fungi. We are very pleased to have such good candidates in these positions and look forward to close collaboration! Here are the NorBOL barcode managers:
Aina Mærk Aspaas
Aina has a background in freshwater ecology and has experience with molecular techniques in ecology and systematics. For her MSc-project she worked on benthic invertebrates in sub-alpine streams, focusing on mayflies, stoneflies and caddisflies. She has experience from various barcode projects and BOLD and has been supervising new users at the national workshops on DNA barcoding in 2013 and 2014. Aina will be the regional contact for Central Norway and coordinate the barcoding of freshwater invertebrates and bryophytes in Norway.
Marie Kristine Føreid
Marie is an ecologist who did her Bachelor at the University of Bergen and MSc at the University of Tromsø. Her Master-thesis «Regional phylogeography of a clonal salt marsh species, Puccinellia phryganodes (Poaceae), in Svalbard» was done in collaboration with the University Centre of Svalbard (UNIS). Marie has experience from field work in the Arctic and with AFLP-techniques and has worked on a Clean lab with ancient DNA and multiple extraction techniques. Marie will be the regional contact for northern Norway and in collaboration with Inger Alsos coordinate the barcoding of vascular plants and ascomycetes in Norway.
Katrine Kongshavn
Katrine has worked at the invertebrate department at the University Museum of Bergen since 2009. She has a MSc in biodiversity, evolution and ecology and has been involved in various projects at the museum. Among these are curation of material from the MAREANO-project, african marine benthic invertebrates, Skagerrak and polychaetes from Norwegian waters. The barcoding of marine invertebrates and taxonomically related groups (e.g. terrestrial Annelida and Crustacea) will be coordinated from the University Museum in Bergen. The natural history collections have an active blog that also reports on NorBOL news: http://evertebrat.b.uib.no/
Gunnhild Martinsen
Gunnhild Marthinsen has a PhD in population genetics on birds from the University of Oslo (2007). She has since then worked as DNA-lab technician and DNA barcode coordinator at the Natural History Museum in Oslo. Gunnhild has broad experience in molecular genetic tools and has sequenced COI from many different animal groups. Her research interest has mainly been on speciation and speciation processes. As NorBOL barcode manager at the Natural History Museum in Oslo, Gunnhild will be coordinating DNA barcoding of terrestrial insects, bacidiomycetes. lichens and smaller groups on non-marine invertebrates. She will also be the regional contact for eastern and southern Norway.
The marvellous fungal season of 2014 in southern Norway provided a kick-start to the barcoding of Norwegian bacidiomycetes for the BOLD-library.
Barcoders from the Natural History Museum in Oslo were given the opportunity to join the annual meeting of the Norwegian mycological and useful plants association. The 120 participants shared their findings and their knowledge with us, and 405 species were collected for DNA barcoding at the meeting in Sørmarka, south of Oslo. We are very pleased with this result. Thanks you to all participants!
In order to manage stocks of freshwater fish in the best possible way, you need to know time and place of spawning. The Freshwater Ecology & Inland Fisheries Laboratory at the Natural History Museum (NHM) in Oslo has collected fish eggs at different places during spring-time in the lower parts of the rivers Nitelva and Leira. The eggs were barcoded at NHM. With the help of the reference library of fresh water fishes, the eggs were determined to be asp, ide and roach. Asp and ide were found in Nitelva and in a side-river to Leira. Eggs of roach were identified from collections later in the season. This will aid the management of these fish species.
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Participants are sturying lichens at the old Mokk copper mine. Photo Mika Bendiksby (CC-BY).
Jukka Pykälä and Mika Bendiksby sample lichens for DNA barcoding. Photo Einar Timdal (CC-BY).
