The Natural History Museum in Oslo and NorBOL participated at the Oslo Science Fair September 23-24, 2016. At our stand we communicated challenges with biological, morphological and genetic species definitions. Fifteen hundered shots of juice were served with the task of identifying which three fruits the juice was composed of. To help them with the task, people received visual DNA barcodes of the fruits as well as a reference library of fruit barcodes. Many learned how DNA barcoding can be used to determine the content of food.
Gunnhild Marthinsen serves unknown juice at the Oslo Science Fair. Photo Dag Inge Danielsen CC-BY.
PhD-student Sonja Kistenich shows how DNA barcoding works. Photo Gunnhild Marthinsen CC-BY.
On Friday September 23 time had come for Researchers’ Night in the NTNU Science Building. Like previous years, the interest for participation was great and more than 1100 high school students trawled the stands, attended lectures and visited labs at NTNU. NorBOL was present with a stand on DNA barcoding and LifeScanner.
Xiaolong and Aina welcome visitiors to NorBOL’s stand at Researchers’ Night 2016. Photo Torbjørn Ekrem CC-BY.
At our stand, students and teachers were challanged to do practical DNA barcoding: Three visualized DNA sequences from unknown prey had been retrieved from a boreal owl pellet and could be compared to known sequences in a reference library. The task was not necessarily simple and created good discussions among the participants. As prize and proof of particpation, the stydents received #mydnabarcode stickers.
Torbjørn explains how DNA barcoding works. Photo Xiaolong Lin CC-BY.
Active visitors at the NorBOL stand. Video Torbjørn Ekrem CC-BY.
Thanks to Aina, Erik and Xiaolong for excellent contributions to the NorBOL stand and Researcher’s Night!
NorBOL and the Natural History Museum in Oslo have this winter worked together with a biology-class at Hersleb upper secondary school in doing an invetory of the insect diversity in the Botanical Garden.
The Malaise trap in the Botanical Garden in Oslo. Photo Gunnhild Marthinsen (CC-BY).
Last August, the students deployed a Malaise-trap in the garden and helped collecting the samples. They then sorted the insects to what they thought were different species based on appearance. One hundred and fifty animals were sampled and sent to the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics in Guelph for sequencing.
The students will now compare the sequencing results with their own identifications.
Eager students sort the Malaise Trap samples. Photo Gunnhild Marthinsen (c).
Through this project the students learn about species diversity and DNA analyses. They experience how difficult it is to determine species based on appearance, especially when not being an expert, and that DNA barcoding works well both for identification of species and for getting an overview of the species diversity.
The project revealed a high diversity of Diptera and Hymenoptera in the Botanical Garden; ca 80 species were found among the 150 that were submitted for analyses. Among the collected species were also a few rarities that are only known from a few localities in Norway; one of the species can even turn out to be new to Norway.
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.
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Gunnhild Marthinsen serves unknown juice at the Oslo Science Fair. Photo Dag Inge Danielsen CC-BY.
PhD-student Sonja Kistenich shows how DNA barcoding works. Photo Gunnhild Marthinsen CC-BY.
