This year’s Scientific Steering Committee meeting has a dual purpose: to celebrate the project’s formal launch and to focus on “the road ahead” in meeting our ambitious deliverables over the next five years.

Meeting Structure

Day 1 – Friday, September 24:
We will review the current status of the project and use small group discussions to identify the major goals, opportunities, challenges and strategies to be addressed within our structure of program themes and Working Groups. Progress and outcomes of the small group discussions will be shared with all delegates in a “marketplace” forum, and consolidated in short presentations during the course of the day.

Day 2 – Saturday, September 25:
We will incorporate the insights and recommendations from Day 1 into an overall ‘Roadmap’ for the iBOL project, and use small group discussions to address the role of Central, Regional and National nodes in ensuring its success.

Download the updated program (V2) (PDF)

Please bookmark this page and check back regularly for further updates, breakout group assignments and pre-meeting materials. ]]> http://ibol.org/ssc-meeting/feed/ 0 http://ibol.org/romania-completes-library-of-butterfly-barcodes/ http://ibol.org/romania-completes-library-of-butterfly-barcodes/#comments Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:50:15 +0000 john.chenery http://ibol.org/?p=3546 Romania is now the first country to have barcoded its entire butterfly fauna – all 180 species.

DNA barcoding aims to accelerate species identification and discovery, but performance tests have shown marked differences in identification success. As a consequence, there remains a great need for comprehensive studies which objectively test the method in groups with a solid taxonomic framework.

In a study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Vlad Dinca, Evgeny Zakharov, Paul Hebert and Roger Vila focus on the 180 species of butterflies in Romania, accounting for about one third of the European butterfly fauna. The country includes five eco-regions, the highest of any in the European Union, and is a good representative for temperate areas.

Morphology and DNA barcodes of more than 1,300 specimens were carefully studied and compared and the results indicate that 90 per cent of the species form barcode clusters allowing their reliable identification. The remaining cases involve nine closely related species pairs, some whose taxonomic status is controversial or that hybridize regularly.

Interestingly, DNA barcoding was found to be the most effective identification tool, outperforming external morphology, and being slightly better than male genitalia.

Romania is now the first country to have a comprehensive DNA barcode reference database for butterflies. Similar barcoding efforts based on comprehensive sampling of specific geographical regions can act as functional modules that will foster the early application of DNA barcoding while a global system is under development.

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Romania has become the first country to DNA barcode all of its butterflies. The 180 species account for about one third of the total European butterfly fauna.

Read more…

Barcoding Life (PDF)

INFORMATION FOR DELEGATES

Travel and Airport Transfer

International delegates will arrive at Toronto’s Lester Pearson International Airport (YYZ). A Red Car vehicle will transport you 50km west to Guelph.

Please send us your flight details (Airline, Flight numbers and arrival/departure times) as soon as possible and we’ll send you your Red Car reservation number.

Instructions:

After you clear Customs at Pearson Airport, proceed to the Ground Transportation Desk where the receptionist will call for your car to collect you.

Terminal 1: When you exit baggage claim on the arrivals level, turn right and follow the signs for Ground Transportation. Proceed towards the end of the building and take the escalator (on your left) or the elevator (on your right) down to Ground Level. The Ground Transportation Booth is on this level.
Terminal 3: If you are arriving on an International flight, turn left when you exit baggage claim and walk past the car rental offices to Ground Transportation. If you are arriving on a domestic flight, turn right when you exit baggage claim and proceed to Ground Transportation located beside the first escalator.

Don’t worry if your flight is delayed as Red Car monitors flight schedules. However, if you are shifted to a different flight, please phone 01-519-824-4120 ext. 56393 so we can relay this information to Red Car. If this is not possible, simply go to the Red Car booth  when you clear Customs.

Accommodation

All delegates will stay at the Delta Guelph Hotel, 50 Stone Road West, Guelph.

Tel: 1-519-780-3700

A room will be reserved in your name. In your room, you will find an information pack with details of all business and social activities over the next few days. Relax until it’s time to head out for the welcome barbecue!

Meals

Breakfast: A buffet breakfast is available in the hotel restaurant. The cost is included in your accommodation package.

Lunch: Lunch will be served both days at the hotel.

Dinner: Dinner will be provided at venues away from the hotel. Details and bus transfer times will be in the Information Pack you will receive upon arrival. Please note that the final dinner, celebrating the Official Activation of iBOL, will be a semi-formal event (business attire).

Meeting Venue

All business sessions will be held in the Gryphon Room and nearby meeting rooms at the Delta Guelph Hotel Conference Centre. You will receive an Information Pack with a detailed Event Program and Meeting Agenda when you arrive at the hotel.

Social Events

Thursday, September 23
Arriving delegates will join staff from the iBOL Secretariat and the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario for a welcome barbecue at The Arboretum on the campus of the University of Guelph.

Friday, September 24
Dinner will be at historic Langdon Hall, in the town of Cambridge, about a 30-minute bus journey from Guelph.

Saturday, September 25
The Official Activation of the iBOL project will be celebrated at a Reception and Dinner at the top of Toronto’s famous CN Tower. Toronto is a one-hour bus journey from Guelph.

South African and Canadian researchers are planning a 17-day expedition to document animal and plant species in the Succulent Karoo and other South African biodiversity hot spots.

Read more…

Unique Way to Document SA Species (PDF)

Johannesberg – A fleet of 10 Toyota Hilux pickups carrying South African and Canadian researchers will set out from the University of Johannesberg September 20 on a 17-day expedition to document South Africa’s animal and plant species.

Although South Africa’s biodiversity is a priceless resource, vital to human well-being and planetary health, scientists have still not catalogued most species. For instance, 50,000 species of insects have been recorded but an estimated 50,000 more have yet to be described.

In an attempt to bridge this gap, the Toyota Enviro Outreach Team (under the expert guidance of Gerhard and Elmarie Groenewald from Klipbokkop Mountain Reserve) together with scientists and students from the University of Johannesburg, University of Guelph (Canada), Cape Nature and SANPARKS will mark the International Year of Biodiversity with a 17-day expedition to collect plant and animal specimens for DNA barcoding.

This project, which aims to safeguard our natural wealth and reduce biodiversity loss, is part of an effort called the International Barcode of Life (iBOL) project, the biggest biodiversity genomics initiative ever undertaken. Led by a team of Canadian scientists, the project’s goal is to assemble a DNA barcode reference library for all life on Earth.

DNA barcoding utilizes sequence diversity in a standardized gene region to identify species and discover new ones. Because this technique works on minute amounts of tissue, it can even be used on fragments of plant and animal material that would be difficult to identify using traditional morphological methods.

South Africa has undertaken to barcode 20,000 specimens by April 2011 and a further 40,000 specimens by April 2013. The benefits of this ambitious work program will be enormous. Applications of the DNA barcode identification system include curbing the illegal trade of endangered species, controlling pests and vectors of disease, identifying invasive and poisonous organisms, as well as fragmentary material in forensic investigations. However, the main application will be to assess species diversity in the world’s biodiversity hotspots where a shortage of specialist skills hampers conservation efforts.

The Toyota Enviro Outreach initiative will start on September 20 at the Klipbokkop Mountain Reserve and will run until October 6. During their travels, the research team will work in three of the world’s 34 global biodiversity hotspots – the Succulent Karoo, the Cape Floristic Region and Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany.

The goal is to collect specimens from a broad range of taxa and to produce DNA barcode records for all of them. These barcode sequences will be uploaded on the Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD), an online informatics platform where they will become part of a growing reference library of DNA barcodes for South African plants and animals that is freely available for use by the broader scientific and amateur naturalist communities.All voucher specimens will be deposited in major national collections where they will be available for examination and in-depth analyses by researchers. The project will also expand the electronic information base on South African biodiversity and facilitate the growth of the National Collecting Programme.

“The importance of South Africa to the iBOL initiative cannot be overstated,” said Paul Hebert, the Scientific Director of the iBOL Consortium. “From the iBOL perspective, it is the ideal combination – a country with vast biodiversity and a community of skilled scientists dedicated to the application of DNA barcoding in species identification”. “We are immensely grateful to the Toyota Enviro Outreach initiative for its assistance in ensuring that South Africa achieves its barcoding targets.”

According to Prof Kinta Burger, the Dean of Science at the University of Johannesburg, with this expedition, Toyota provides the African Centre for DNA Barcoding at the University of Johannesburg together with its partner institutions the unique opportunity to collect research samples from parts of Africa that are normally inaccessible.

Additional note to Editors: The International Barcode of Life (iBOL) project is a Canadian-led research alliance, which spans 26 countries and brings together hundreds of leading scientists in the task of collecting specimens, obtaining their DNA barcode records and building an informatics platform to store and share the information for use in species identification and discovery. By 2015, iBOL participants will gather DNA barcode records for five million specimens representing 500,000 species, delivering a highly effective identification system for species commonly encountered by humanity and laying the foundation for subsequent progress towards a barcode reference library for all life.

Contact Details:

Michelle van der Bank and/or Olivier Maurin
University of Johannesburg
Tel: +27 11 559 3477 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              +27 11 559 3477      end_of_the_skype_highlighting Mobile: + 27 (0) 82 837 5567
Email: mvdbank@uj.ac.za; olive.maurin@gmail.com

Gerhard & Elmarie Groenewald
Klipbokkop Mountain Reserve
Mobile: +27 (0) 82 579 4515
Email: elmarie@kbkm.co.za

John Chenery
Director of Communications & Media
International Barcode of Life Consortium (iBOL)
Tel: 1-519-824-4120 ext. 56587 Cell: 1-416-452-6016
Email: jchenery@uoguelph.ca

Executive Director,
International Barcode of Life Consortium,
Biodiversity Institute of Ontario,
University of Guelph,
Guelph, Canada

pfreeman@ibol.org

Frog killer caught in the act (PDF)