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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Zooplankton sequenced at sea, illuminating life in the dark

The deep oceans are the largest biotic space on earth, but remain largely unexplored.  Census of Marine Life scientists recently trawled the Atlantic between the southeast US coast and the Mid-Atlantic ridge, focusing on the zone of perpetual darkness that lies below about 1000 m, to inventory and photograph the variety and abundance of zooplankton–the tiny sea animals that form a vital link in ocean food chains. The 20 day cruise completed April 20 is part of the ambitious gobal inventory of zooplankton by 2010 (Census of Marine Zooplankton (CMarZ), a Census of Marine life initiative. As reported in Science, for the first time DNA sequencing was performed on the rolling seas, telescoping into just three weeks what would normally represent years of laboratory work. 

Clio pyramidata, one of the species sequenced at sea by CMarZ scientistsAccording to Ann Bucklin, lead scientist for CMarZ and Head of the University of Connecticut Marine Sciences Department, “we are just starting to realize how little we know about species variety. We used to think we knew many species well, but the advent of DNA barcoding has radically altered that perception.  Genetically distinctive species of zooplankton are being found with increasing frequency.”  

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 13th, 2006 at 10:38 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.