DNA Barcode Data Analysis Initiative: Tools for a New Generation of Biodiversity Data Workshops

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This award supports 6 graduate students and postdocs from US institutions to attend two workshops about DNA Barcodes to be held in Paris, France July 6-8, 2006 and in February 2007 in Southeast Asia. DNA barcodes are short gene sequences taken from standardized positions in the genome. DNA barcodes are being developed as a global standard for species identification. An international consortium has launched a number of Working Groups that are addressing scientific and technical obstacles faced by DNA barcoding projects as well as other researchers in taxonomy and systematic and evolutionary biology. One of them, the Data Analysis Working Group, includes computer scientists, statisticians, taxonomists and population geneticists who are developing a new generation of analytical protocols and techniques for DNA barcode data. Support for European participation in this project by the European Science Foundation has already been secured, and co-funding from the Consortium for the Barcode of Life has also been committed. This project has the potential to provide the taxonomic community and other users of DNA barcode with the tools and techniques they will need to use barcode data and other molecular markers for species-level identification.