Rockefeller University

Program for the Human Environment

The Barcode Blog

A mostly scientific blog about short DNA sequences for species identification and discovery. I encourage your commentary. -- Mark Stoeckle

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Sometimes taxonomy moves slowly, could use help

In 1998, as part of biodiversity survey to assess the health of New York City’s Central Park, researchers at the American Museum of Natural History collected leaf litter samples. After sorting, the museum sent a collection of Central Park millipedes and centipedes to Richard L. Hoffman, curator for invertebrates at the Virginia Museum of Natural History. After study, Dr. Hoffman sent several specimens he could not identify to scientists in Italy. In July 2002, Italian scientists announced the Central Park centipede was a new species, and named it Nannarrup hoffmani in honor of Dr. Hoffman. In October 2003, Foddai, Bonato, Pereira, and Minelli published the species description in Journal of Natural History. As of April 2006, the journal issue containing the description is available to subscribers or by payment per article.

My summary: 1 new species, found across the street from one of the world’s premier natural history research institutions, recognized as a new species 4 years later, published description year 5, awaiting public access year 8.  I believe that DNA barcoding can provide taxonomists with scientific tools and help attract funding to accelerate this process.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 16th, 2006 at 11:12 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Contact: mark.stoeckle@rockefeller.edu

About this site

This web site is an outgrowth of the Taxonomy, DNA, and Barcode of Life meeting held at Banbury Center, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, September 9-12, 2003. It is designed and managed by Mark Stoeckle, Perrin Meyer, and Jason Yung at the Program for the Human Environment (PHE) at The Rockefeller University.

About the Program for the Human Environment

The involvement of the Program for the Human Environment in DNA barcoding dates to Jesse Ausubel's attendance in February 2002 at a conference in Nova Scotia organized by the Canadian Center for Marine Biodiversity. At the conference, Paul Hebert presented for the first time his concept of large-scale DNA barcoding for species identification. Impressed by the potential for this technology to address difficult challenges in the Census of Marine Life, Jesse agreed with Paul on encouraging a conference to explore the contribution taxonomy and DNA could make to the Census as well as other large-scale terrestrial efforts. In his capacity as a Program Director of the Sloan Foundation, Jesse turned to the Banbury Conference Center of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, whose leader Jan Witkowski prepared a strong proposal to explore both the scientific reliability of barcoding and the processes that might bring it to broad application. Concurrently, PHE researcher Mark Stoeckle began to work with the Hebert lab on analytic studies of barcoding in birds. Our involvement in barcoding now takes 3 forms: assisting the organizational development of the Consortium for the Barcode of Life and the Barcode of Life Initiative; contributing to the scientific development of the field, especially by studies in birds, and contributing to public understanding of the science and technology of barcoding and its applications through improved visualization techniques and preparation of brochures and other broadly accessible means, including this website. While the Sloan Foundation continues to support CBOL through a grant to the Smithsonian Institution, it does not provide financial support for barcoding research itself or support to the PHE for its research in this field.