ECBOL NEWSLETTER - European Consortium for the Barcode Of Life

1 100 200 300 400 500 600 745 

Nucleotide Diversity 

Zero diversity Highest diversity 

1 100 200 300 400 500 600 745 

ECBOL NEWSLETTER ISSUE 3 MARCH 2011 

CONTENTS: 

FEATURES 

DNA Barcoding of marine organisms at MNHN Paris ..................................... 1 

EDIT YEAR 5 Event ....................................................................................... 2 

ECBOL after EDIT........................................................................................... 3 

Launching the “Belgian Network for DNA Barcoding .................................... 4 

REGULAR FEATURES 

Upcoming meetings ....................................................................................... 5 

Job opportunities ............................................................................................ 5 

Latest from ecbol.org ...................................................................................... 5 

Recent publications ......................................................................................... 5 

1 100 200 300 400 500 600 745 



1 100 200 300 400 500 600 745

The newsletter for the European Consortium for the Barcode of Life (ECBOL) is aimed at 

all members of the ECBOL community and others that are interested in DNA barcoding and 

biodiversity in Europe and developing countries in Africa. The aim of this newsletter is to keep 

these communities informed on all issues related to DNA barcoding and biodiversity research 

and application in Europe. Therefore, this newsletter will feature several short articles on 

various topics relevant to the ECBOL community. This will also include regular features to keep 

the community informed about the latest developments. 

We would appreciate any contributions and comments regarding features in this newsletter 

as well as suggestions on improving the content and distribution of information made available 

in this newsletter. 

Feel free to contact us at barcode@cbs.knaw.nl or visit us at www.ecbol.org. 

1 100 200 300 400 500 

DNA BARCODING OF MARINE 

ORGANISMS AT MNHN PARIS 

By Agnes Dettai 

There is a long tradition of studies on the 

Southern Ocean at the Museum National 

d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, centered on the 

Kerguelen archipelago and the East Antarctic 

Region (Dumont d’Urville Sea). As in other 

museums, the preservation methods of 

older specimens make DNA studies difficult, 

but there have been a number of recent 

programs with recurrent access to these two 

geographic sectors. Around Terre Adélie, 

IPEV programs like ICOTA (Ichtyologie 

Côtière en Terre Adélie, 1999-2008), or 

REVOLTA (Radiations Evolutives en Terre 

Adélie) have brought in a large number of 

Harknessia_sp.txt 1 -1 

Nucleotides 

T C A G 

samples compatible with molecular methods, 

while the fish biomass surveys POKER 2006 

and 2010 did the same for the Kerguelen 

Plateau. Collection was first focussed on 

teleost fish, but in recent years most benthic 

groups were also collected. Environmental 

parameters for each specimen are also 

recorded, and recently underwater videos 

have been added to explore finely the species 

assemblages. These are difficult to assess 

using solely the contents of fishing gears. 

Once the collected samples have been sent 

there, the MNHN serves as a central node 

for sorting and dispatching these materials. 

Depending on the taxa, the specimens are 

either studied locally, or sent to Australian, 

Belgian, German or Italian specialists for 

morphological and molecular analyses, 

including barcoding. 

But the longstanding expertise in 

taxonomy of the Southern Ocean marine 

organisms at the MNHN is also used. 

Teleost fish, featherstars (Crinoidea), starfish 

(Asteroidea) and Tunicates are identified by 

MNHN scientists and sequenced locally, in 

collaboration with the Génoscope (Centre 

National de Séquencage, Evry). These 

taxonomic groups are part of barcodeinclusive 

research programs of several 

MNHN teams, like for instance project the 

French ANR project ANTFLOCKs (Antarctic 

Species Flocks), and of our contribution to 

the Census of Antarctic Marine Life. Teleosts 

and featherstars are the groups whose 

study is most advanced. Large amounts of 

barcode data have been generated either 

at the MNHN/Génoscope (Teleosts and 

featherstars), or in collaboration with the 

Barcoding Center in Guelph (featherstars). 

Most of the sequences already generated 

are from Dumont d’Urville Sea specimens, 

but work has also started on the fauna of the 

Kerguelen Plateau. 

Specimen collection in the Artic region 

The barcode data already generated 

for featherstars represents thousands of 

specimens from all over the Southern Ocean, 

and has been completed with several other 

genes for an inclusive phylogeography.

Teleosts from these areas are relatively 

well known, although a few new species 

are described each year. A dataset for more 

than five hundred specimens and eighty 

species, combining barcode sequences, 

morphological identification, and, for some 

taxa, additional markers has been established 

from the samples collected during the 2007- 

2008 international CAML CEAMARC survey 

(Collaborative East Antarctic Marine Census) 

on the eastern Antarctic shelf along Terre 

Adélie and George V Land. These sequences 

have considerably enlarged the Antarctic 

reference dataset in the BOLD, especially 

for hard to identify groups like snailfish 

(Liparidae) and eelpouts (Zoarcidae), where 

the type specimens of four new species have 

been sequenced. They also improved our 

knowledge of the evolution of the Southern 

Ocean Teleosts, as the cytochrome oxidase I 

is a good marker for molecular phylogenetics 

at small and medium scale in the group. 

following years, both for this group and the 

others. 

EDIT YEAR 5 EVENT 

By Lorenzo Lombard 

Remaster species 

More than 550 East Antarctic starfish 

specimens have been sampled for barcode 

on the CEAMARC survey alone, and the 

collection is being completed using the 

REVOLTA program. The first hundred 

sequences have already raised some 

interesting taxonomic questions and added 

new and divergent sequences to the BOLD. 

Almost no barcode data is available for 

Antarctic Ascidians yet, maybe because 

of the difficulty to amplify the COI for many 

species of this group. Specimens from 27 

species identified by F. Monniot, one of the 

leading specialists for the Southern Ocean 

ascidians, have been sequenced (including 

three new species), and will be released 

shortly, while a much larger dataset is in 

preparation. Taxonomic problems are arising 

with the inclusion of this new molecular 

data, and promise many discoveries in the 

On 17-19 January 2011 the EDIT Year 5 

Event took place at the Muséum National 

d’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN) in Paris as the 

last general meeting of the EDIT (European 

Distributed Institute of Taxonomy) contract 

period. The three day event consisted of 

a roundtable meeting of the CETAF/EDIT 

Board of Directors on the first day followed 

by the main event on the second day. 

The main event consisted of a scientific 

conference which was opened by Gilles 

Boeuf, President of the MNHN Paris. The 

conference consisted of eight invited talks 

divided over four sessions that included the 

topics “From nature to notion, from field to 

1 100 200 300 400 500 



data”, “Data driven processes”, “Producing 

and sharing biodiversity data, information 

and knowledge” and “Training and Public 

Outreach”. All eight invited talks highlighted 

the importance of biodiversity and taxonomy 

in Europe and how EDIT has laid a foundation 

for the continued study and application of 

these disciplines in Europe after the period 

of EDIT. The third day consisted of side 

events that included various workshops 

1 100 200 300 400 500

1 100 200 300 400 500 

and meetings of EDIT components to be 

continued after the period of EDIT. 

Extract from EDIT Year 5 Event Programme 

In his talk titled “reverse taxonomy”, 

Pedro Crous (CBS-KNAW, the Netherlands) 

illustrated how DNA barcoding basically 

changed the way in which we presently look 

at microbial biodiversity, namely to sequence 


Nucleotides 

T C A G 

first, and ask questions later. Basically this 

approach has led to an expedited discovery 

of microbial life (in soil, rocks, water, air, and 

organic substrates). Due to DNA barcoding 

the biggest challenge that systematists will 

face in future will no longer be recognising 

undescribed taxa, but increasing the rate in 

which taxonomists can publish taxonomic 

novelties, and doing so in a manner that 

these data are immediately available to 

the community in an intelligent fashion, 

interlinked with major online repositories and 

biodiversity initiatives. 

ECBOL AFTER EDIT 

By Lorenzo Lombard 

The partners of the European Consortium 

for the Barcode of Life (ECBOL) have 

reached a Memorandum of Understanding 

(MOU) on how to sustain ECBOL beyond 

the termination of the EDIT contract. One 

of the major goals of this MOU is to sustain 

the coordination activities in the field of DNA 

barcoding in Europe that was initiated with 

financial support from the EDIT network. 

The MOU was distributed to all the 

EDIT Directors, team leaders and the EDIT 

Network Steering Committee on 9 December 

2010. One of the essential pillars in this 

support from EDIT was the appointment of 

an ECBOL coordinator, Dr Lorenzo Lombard, 

who is currently stationed at the CBS-KNAW 

in Utrecht, The Netherlands. In collaboration 

with NCB-Naturalis in Leiden, the Dutch 

node of EDIT will continue to provide in-kind 

administrative and organisational support for 

ECBOL to ensure it continuation for the next 

four years. Furthermore, the partners of this 

MOU recognise the importance of long-term 

institutional collaboration and integration, 

and that the ECBOL coordinator will have to 

continue and play a key-role in highlighting 

funding opportunities, and interaction with 

the International Barcode of Life (IBOL) at 

Guelph in Canada, and the Consortium for the 

Barcode of Life (CBOL) at the Smithsonian 

in the USA. While activities that ECBOL 

partners will be able to undertake in future 

to sustain ECBOL are subject to availability 

of funds, in effect this is the only realistic 

business model to achieve the sustainability 

of this network in the long term. 

In view of the conclusion of the EDIT 

network on the 28 th of February 2011, the 

partners devised the MOU with the aim of 

continued collaboration of the institutions 

in the CETAF (Consortium of European 

Taxonomic Facilities) framework. The 

Netherlands Centre of Biodiversity (NCB, 

including EDIT partners NHM-Leiden 

and ZMA) was granted 30 million Euro in 

September 2009, which opened thus far the 

only opportunity for financial support for the 

continued coordination of barcoding activities 

in Europe. The amount available out of the 

NCB funds will allow the extension of the 

contract of the ECBOL coordinator office in 

Utrecht until 2014. 

A consortium management structure 

roadmap is envisaged for ECBOL after 

the termination of the EDIT contract. This 

roadmap is closely related to the management 

roadmap of the International Barcode of 

Life (iBOL). With this roadmap ECBOL will 

continue to have member organisations from

as many as possible European countries. 

These member organisations are typically 

natural history museums, zoological and 

botanical gardens, herbaria, university 

departments, private biotech companies 

and other policy directed bodies such as 

biodiversity organisations and governmental 

and intergovernmental organisations. 

ECBOL will continue to apply for European 

funding, and more importantly, also stimulate 

the activities in national networks across 

Europe. Funds will be used for activities 

linked to iBOL. The separate institutions 

making up the ECBOL consortium are 

represented in the Core Group, which is an 

advisory body to the consortium. ECBOL 

will continue to advise institutions of a 

specific country to form national networks. 

These national networks can apply for and 

use country specific funds. The European 

Network of Leading Labs (NELL), will consist 

of representatives from the various European 

laboratories, which will be responsible for 

the DNA Barcoding pipelines in the various 

leading labs of the consortium. The ECBOL 

consortium will have three advisory bodies, 

CETAF, NELL, and the Scientific Advisory 

Council. 

ECBOL will continue collaborations with 

the Consortium for the Barcoding of Life 

(CBOL) and the International Barcode of Life 

(iBOL) initiative in regards to drafting norms, 

assembling protocols, networking, raising 

awareness, capacity building and lowering 

the barriers to barcode assembly. Although 

ECBOL is striving to be a Central Node in 

iBOL, lack of funding for barcoding in Europe, 

as funds are only available for coordination, 

could result in European countries initially 

affiliating at national level to IBOL, until a 

major European grant has been obtained. 

In the meantime ECBOL will continue to try 

and obtain funding for barcoding to meet the 

requirements to act as a Central Node. 

The ECBOL website (http://www.ecbol. 

org) is an important platform for the ECBOL 

community. It has been revamped and will 

be maintained and continuously updated 

with current information of European and 

international DNA barcoding activities. This 

website will also be used to link various 

barcoding labs in Europe and keep them 

abreast of the latest information. Furthermore, 

a quarterly ECBOL newsletter has been 

successfully launched that is distributed 

through a mail service to European barcoding 

labs and is also freely available through the 

ECBOL website. 

LAUNCHING THE “BELGIAN NETWORK 

FOR DNA BARCODING” 

By Thierry Backeljau & Marc De Meyer 

Although, hitherto, relatively few Belgian 

research groups have been actively involved 

in DNA barcoding, there are some notable 

exceptions, such as the “Joint Experimental 

Molecular Unit (JEMU)”. JEMU is a research 

team that was created jointly by the Royal 

Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS, 

Brussels, Belgium) and the Royal Museum 

for Central Africa (RMCA, Tervuren, Belgium) 

and that is financed by the federal Belgian 

Science Policy Office. It was established in 

2007 and employs four researchers (two 

postdocs, and two assistants), with the aim 

to conduct molecular systematic research 

in function of ongoing programmes of and 

in collaboration with scientist from both 

institutes. This entails two major lines of work: 

(1) testing, exploring and improving protocols 

for DNA extraction and amplification from 

degraded museum samples, and (2) DNA 

barcoding. JEMU’s interest in DNA barcoding 

1 100 200 300 400 500 



is not only reflected by several of its past 

and ongoing DNA barcoding programmes, 

but also by the fact that the JEMU funding 

(1,240,000 €) was designated as a matching 

fund for the International Barcode of Life 

(iBOL) project. More information about JEMU 

can be found at http://jemu.myspecies.info/. 

In the course of the JEMU functioning 

during the past four years, it became clear 

that several other Belgian research groups 

1 100 200 300 400 500

1 100 200 300 400 500 

had a strong interest to become involved 

in DNA barcoding activities. To this end, 

some of these research groups established 

a collaboration with JEMU to develop joint 

DNA barcoding projects focusing on specific 

taxa, often within well-delimited geographic 

areas (e.g. Congo River Basin, Antarctica, 

Macaronesia, ...), while other research 

groups started their DNA barcoding studies 

independently. Yet, for several teams DNA 

barcoding was still in some sort of planning 

or upstart stage. This new but relatively 

disparate emergence of DNA barcoding 

in Belgium, soon gave rise to a growing 

feeling that it would be advantageous if 

Belgian DNA barcoding activities were 

facilitated, supported and coordinated by 

some sort of network structure that could 

act as an (inter)national contact, liaison and 

information center. Against this background, 

and stimulated by the federal Belgian 

Science Policy Office, JEMU organized 

an informal workshop “Towards a Belgian 

network of DNA barcoding laboratories”, 

with the aim to explore the feasibility of 

creating a sustainable DNA barcoding 

network in Belgium. The meeting was held 

at RBINS on June 28th 2010 and gathered 

26 participants (a report on this meeting 

can be downloaded at http://www.ecbol.org/ 

docs/Report%20on%20the%20meeting%20 

28062010.pdf; the minutes of the meeting 

can be found at http://www.ecbol.org/docs/ 


Nucleotides 

T C A G 

Minutes%20BelgianNetworkBarcoding. 

pdf). The conclusion of the meeting was 

that JEMU would draft an application for the 

funding of a “Scientific Research Network” to 

be submitted at the “Research Foundation - 

Flanders (FWO)” and so this was done. 

Fortunately, the FWO application was 

successful and hence, since January 

1st 2011 the “Belgian Network for DNA 

Barcoding” has become a fact! Currently, 

the network comprises 20 Belgian research 

groups representing a wide array of thematic 

interests, including taxonomy, phylogeny, 

population genetics, ecology, conservation 

biology, tropical medicine, agricultural 

and forensic sciences. Taxonomically the 

network covers all types of organisms, even 

though the majority of the participating 

teams deal with animals. The international 

link of the network is provided by the 

European Consortium for the Barcode 

of Life (ECBOL) and the Consortium for 

the Barcode of Life (CBOL), which both 

are full members of the consortium. The 

network is secured for a funding period of 

five years (2011-2015 with 12,500 €/year) 

to realize its goals, viz. (1) to coordinate 

the efforts and knowledge in the field of 

molecular systematics and DNA barcoding 

in Belgium, (2) to exchange methodological 

and interpretative expertise, (3) to provide 

training opportunities in the field of 

molecular systematics and DNA barcoding, 

(4) to stimulate and support joint research 

activities and project applications with 

respect to molecular systematics and DNA 

barcoding, and (5) to act as Belgian contact 

point for international initiatives such as 

CBOL, ECBOL and iBOL. These goals 

will be achieved by, amongst others, (1) 

developing and maintaining a scratchpad 

based website (see http://scratchpads. 

eu/), (2) organizing meetings, workshops, 

seminars and short courses, (3) providing 

information on funding possibilities and 

upcoming events, (4) establishing a 

platform for information exchange, and (5) 

generating joint research outputs. 

The network will be run and managed by 

JEMU at RBINS and RMCA. As such, we 

hope that the network will generate lots 

of new research opportunities, new (inter) 

national collaborations and new funding 

possibilities!

UPCOMING MEETINGS: 

• NBOL meeting – CBS-KNAW Fungal Biodiversity Centre, Utrecht, The Netherlands 

– 14 April 2011 

• Fungal Barcoding Workshop – CBS-KNAW Fungal Biodiversity Centre, Utrecht, The 

Netherlands – 17-18 April 2011 

• Pacific Science Congress: DNA barcoding of Invasive Species – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 

– 14-18 June 2011 

• International Botanical Congress (IBC2011) – Melbourne, Australia – 23-30 July 2011 

• 4 th International Barcode of Life Conference – Adelaide, Australia – 28 November-3 

December 2011 

• 10 th Invertebrate Biodiversity & Conservation Conference – Melbourne, Australia – 4-7 

December 2011 

If you are planning a DNA barcoding or biodiversity related meeting, workshop or course, 

please contact us at barcode@cbs.knaw.nl to spread the word to other members of the ECBOL 

community!! 

JOB OPPORTUNITIES: 

• Postdoctoral positions available at NCB Naturalis (www.ncbnaturalis.nl). 

If you know of or have any positions available regarding DNA barcoding or biodiversity and 

wish to advertise these positions in this newsletter or on the ECBOL website, please contact 

us at barcode@cbs.knaw.nl. 

LATEST FROM ECBOL.ORG: 

The official ECBOL website, www.ecbol.org, features several new pages that include the latest 

information on: 

• Funding opportunities 

• Publications 

• Upcoming meetings and courses 

• Job opportunities 

• Activities on Connect (http://www.connect.barcodeoflife.net) 

If you wish to contribute to or comment on any of these new features and other features or wish 

to have more information made available on www.ecbol.org, please contact Lorenzo Lombard 

at barcode@cbs.knaw.nl. 

RECENT PUBLICATIONS: 

• Shufran KA, Puterka GJ. 2011. DNA barcoding to identify all life stages of holocyclic cereal 

aphids (Hemiptera: Aphididae) on wheat and other Poaceae. Ann. Entomol. Soc. Am. 

104(1): 39-42. 

• Pilgrim EM, Jackson SA, Swenson S, Turcsanyi I, Friedman E, Weigt L, Bagle MJ. 2011. 

Incorporation of DNA barcoding into large-scale biomonitoring program: opportunities and 

pitfalls. Journal of the North American Benthological Society 30(1): 217-231. 

• de Groot GA, During HJ, Maas JW, Schneider H, Vogel JC, Erkens RHJ. 2011. Use of 

rbcL and trnL-F as a two-locus DNA barcode for identification of NW-European ferns: An 

ecological perspective. PLoS ONE 6(1): e16371. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0016371. 

• Hausmann A, Haszprunar G, Hebert PDN. 2011. DNA barcoding the Geometrid fauna 

of Bavaria (Lepidoptera): successes, surprises and questions. PLoS ONE 6(2): e17134 

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0017134 

All these scientific publications and more are available on www.ecbol.org. 

1 100 200 300 400 500 



1 100 200 300 400 500

SPONSORS: 

The ECBOL Newsletter will be published quarterly by the European Consortium for the 

Barcode of Life as part of the EDIT network. 

1 100 200 300 400 500 


Nucleotides 

T C A G 

Design and Layout: Lorenzo Lombard & Manon van den Hoeven-Verweij 

Please send your contributions, comments or suggestions to barcode@cbs.knaw.nl or to: 

Dr. L. Lombard 

Coordinator: European Consortium for the Barcode of Life 

CBS-KNAW Fungal Biodiversity Centre 

Uppsalalaan 8 

3584 CT Utrecht 

The Netherlands 

Tel: +31 (0)30 212 2687 

Fax: +31 (0)30 251 2097

ECBOL NEWSLETTER - European Consortium for the Barcode Of Life

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?