Imagining Sisyphus happy: DNA barcoding and the unnamed majority.
Imagining Sisyphus happy: DNA barcoding and the unnamed majority.
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DOI：
10.1098/rstb.2015.0329
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发表时间：
2016-09-05
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影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Blaxter M
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作者：
Blaxter M
地球上的绝大多数生命在物理上都很小，可归类为微型或小型生物群。这些生物在数量上占优势，很可能它们也有丰富的物种。相比之下，绝大多数分类学的努力都花在了“魅力巨型生物”上：大型生物，其丰富的形态学有助于林奈物种的定义。巨大成功的林奈项目不太可能在合理的时间范围内扩展到大约1000万个物种的总数，因此需要开发替代工具包和方法。其中一个工具包是DNA条形码，特别是在其元条形码或元遗传学模式中，其中生物体纯粹通过样品中诊断DNA序列的存在来鉴定，而不进行形态学鉴定。建立在安全的林奈基础上，将未知（和看不见的）生物体分类为分子操作分类单位（MOTU），并将这些MOTU部署在生物多样性科学中，有望为命名世界上所有物种的西西弗斯任务提供有益的解决方案。这篇文章是主题问题的一部分“从DNA条形码到生物”。
The vast majority of life on the Earth is physically small, and is classifiable as micro- or meiobiota. These organisms are numerically dominant and it is likely that they are also abundantly speciose. By contrast, the vast majority of taxonomic effort has been expended on ‘charismatic megabionts’: larger organisms where a wealth of morphology has facilitated Linnaean species definition. The hugely successful Linnaean project is unlikely to be extensible to the totality of approximately 10 million species in a reasonable time frame and thus alternative toolkits and methodologies need to be developed. One such toolkit is DNA barcoding, particularly in its metabarcoding or metagenetics mode, where organisms are identified purely by the presence of a diagnostic DNA sequence in samples that are not processed for morphological identification. Building on secure Linnaean foundations, classification of unknown (and unseen) organisms to molecular operational taxonomic units (MOTUs) and deployment of these MOTUs in biodiversity science promises a rewarding resolution to the Sisyphean task of naming all the world's species. This article is part of the themed issue ‘From DNA barcodes to biomes’.