A quite informal photo competition was held as a runner-up for the NorBOL kick-off meeting on March 10, 2014. The best DNA barcode related image, graphic or montage would decorate the NorBOL main web page for some time. Katrine Kongshavn from the University Museum of Bergen won, but there were several great contributions. Here are the three best:
Nereis pelagica fra Sognefjorden. Foto Katrine Kongshavn
Sample SB_123. Foto Inger G. Alsos
Campylaspis rubicunda (Liljeborg, 1855) (Cumacea). Foto Linn Hagenlund
The Norwegian Barcode of Life Network (NorBOL) recently received notice of new and continued funding from the Research Council of Norway (RCN) and the Norwegian Biodiversity Information Centre (NBIC) for development of NorBOL to a full scale national research infrastructure. The funding period is for five years (2014-2018).
The project will have a strong focus on the further development of an open access barcode library of Norwegian species in Barcode of Life Data Systems, but also capacity building and networking among the NorBOL-partners will have priority. The RCN and NBIC funded project is coordinated by the NTNU University Museum in Trondheim with the main collaborative partners at the University Museum of Bergen, the Natural History Museum i Oslo, the Tromsø University Museum and the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario at the University of Guelph. Other Norwegian collaborators in NorBOL, particularly the research institutes (see list here), will be continue to be very important contributors to he projects as a considerable amount of expertise is located here. All NorBOL partners are invited to join the project’s advisory board while a smaller assemblage of partners will constitute NorBOL’s steering board.
The project has a total budget of c. 100 M NOK over five years. About 70% is estimated in kind support from project partners and associated research and inventory projects. The remaining funding of the project is covered by The Research Council of Norway (25,6 mill.) and the Norwegian Biodiversity Information Centre (4 mill.) and will largely fund four “barcode managers” at the University Museums, project coordination, workshops and parts of the analytical costs related to DNA sequencing and databasing.
Visit norbol.org and follow @norwbol on Twitter for regular updates on the project.
The NTNU University Museum is pleased to invite you to a new workshop on DNA barcoding. The workshop will take place at the Museum’s Department of Natural History in Trondheim 25-27 March , 2014.
The aim of the workshop is to give the participants practical and theoretical knowledge about the use of DNA barcoding in biodiversity studies. Most of the time will be used for practical work on material from own projects. There will be introductory lectures on all topics. A program is available here: Program workshop.
The workshop is funded by NorBOL and will cover travel costs (cheapest option), hotel and food for one person per ongoing project. All participants must bring material for DNA barcoding or DNA sequences and associated data for uploading to their own project in BOLD. Animals, plants or fungi from Norway are relevant for barcoding through NorBOL, especially material from inventory projects with funding from the Norwegian Taxonomy Initiative. The number of participants will be limited to 15, and it is a good idea register early.
Registration is done via e-mail to Elisabeth Stur (elisabeth.stur@ntnu.no) by February 23.
Your email must include:
Name, address and contact information.
If you need accommodation.
How many individuals of which group(s) you plan to process during the workshop.
What topics you want to learn more about (multiple choice possible):
Structure of the Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD, www.boldsystems.org) and how to start a new project.
Taking tissue samples, filling of sample plates.
Imaging and submitting photos to BOLD.
Submission of own sequences and trace-files to BOLD.
Sequence/diversity analytical tools in BOLD.
We hope that many of you have the opportunity to attend!
Elisabeth Stur & Torbjørn Ekrem
NTNU University Museum, Department of Natural History, Erling Skakkesgate 47A, Trondheim (see map)
Staff from the two NorBOL-institutions NTNU University Museum and the University Museum of Bergen has over the last six months participated in the organization of three successful workshops on DNA barcoding. The workshops were held in Grahamstown (South Africa), Bergen (Norway) and at La Selva biological station (Costa Rica) in collaboration with partners from the South African Institute of Aquatic Biodiversity, University of Vigo and the Organization for Tropical Studies, respectively. The meetings were held as part of the project ”Capacity building in modern taxonomy as an instrument for knowledge transfer in IPBES” and partly funded by the Norwegian Environment Agency’s initiative on knowledge transfer for the UN Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The workshops contained lectures on the charactersistics and applied use of DNA barcode data and gave the participants hands-on experience with the creation and management of samples and DNA barcodes in the Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD). Lots of positive feedback was received during and after the workshops!
The workshop in Grahamstown took place at SAIAB with about 20 enthusiastic participants from all over South Africa in addition to the organizers. The main focus was on freshwater diversity.
The Bergen workshop was held at Espegrend marine biological station south of the city and gathered participants from Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Russia and Norway. Focus was on marine invertebrates collected over a large area along the coast of West Africa. Read more about this project on the blog available here:
The La Selva biological station north of San José hosted the workshop in Costa Rica. 18 participants from Costa Rica, Equador, Mexico, Norway, Panama Puerto Rico and USA, all working on aquatic insects, contributed to the success of this meeting. Here John H. Epler is identifying chironomids from Costa Rica:
Societies’ knowledge of biological and genetic diversity is crucial for nature conservation and sustainable development. The International project on DNA Badcoding (iBOL) has therefore developed an own program for the education and the barcode of life. The program ensures a risk-free environment where students can explore data from their barcode projects and directly compare with actual research data in BOLD. This is made possible through an own student portal (BOLD-SPD) and program website with special functions for both teachers and students. Read more about Education & the Barcode of Life (eBOL) by clicking on the below image. A paper on the project was recently published in PLOS Biology.
The 5th International Barcode of Life conference in Kunming marks the 10-year anniversary for DNA barcoding as an world-wide initiative. The progress during this time has been immense and DNA barcoding is now used in for instance research, biomonitoring, border control, food safety, education and citizen science. For this reason I have high expectations for the meeting in Kunming. An official program is not yet ready, but an unpublished draft that I have seen promises very interesting sessions and many high profile researchers for the invited talks. News and updates are regularly posted on the conference website: www.dnabarcodes2013.org. Submission deadline for abstracts is July 31, while early registration deadline is September 15.
It is a pleasure to be able to announce the new web pages for the Norwegian Barcode of Life Network (NorBOL). On these pages we present DNA barcoding and DNA barcode projects in Norway and will give regular progress updates on the barcode library of Norwegian species.
The use of DNA barcoding in biodiversity research has seen a marked increase over the last few years, also in Norway. Currently, nearly 100 different DNA barcode projects have been registered by NorBOL. Most of these deposit or have deposited sequence data and accompanying information in the Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD) and are included in the progress update presented on these pages.
Thanks for visiting our pages and please don’t hesitate to contact us in case you would like to contribute to NorBOL!
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