First milestone for BOLD Europe

Some of our BGE colleagues from Naturalis Biodiversity Center just came back from a trip to the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (CBG) in Guelph, Canada. CBG is home of the Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD) and the world’s largest DNA barcode sequencing facility. Together, the collaborators unveiled the European BOLD mirror beta, a milestone of the BGE project, and celebrated this first tangible outcome of their strategic collaboration with cake and candles.

The European BOLD mirror will provide BGE and the wider European barcoding community with data storage and publication within the EU through a completely redesigned system. This new BOLD has more comprehensive web services and explicit data standards, which will simplify the integration of barcoding data across information systems. To measure trends in biodiversity through DNA barcoding, the world needs the most up-to-date, comprehensive, and integrated reference materials. This milestone is an important step towards that goal.

“The trip and the ongoing collaboration with CBG shows there is a lot we can learn from each other throughout the DNA barcoding workflow, from sampling, to lab processes, to sequencing and how we handle data and develop information systems”, says Rutger Vos, BGE’s barcoding data and data infrastructure work package leader. “With the accomplishments so far, we are well positioned to start tailoring these systems to the needs of users and other stakeholders. In particular, we can now start strengthening the links between BOLD data and other key resources in the DNA barcoding ecosystem, notably ENA and UNITE.”

Photo & Video: BGE