Rockefeller University

Program for the Human Environment

News

Google Impact supports DNA Barcoding

Border inspectors and wildlife officials around the world look for endangered species  killed and trafficked in violation of national laws and international treaties.  Sometimes the objects are easily identified but many cannot be identified, even by expert taxonomists.  ‘Bushmeat’ is often trafficked as dried smoked meat removed from bones with diagnostic features.  Endangered plants might be exported as seeds or leaf cuttings, or as medicinal powders.  Articles of clothing and jewelry may have been tanned or dyed, making sure identification difficult.

In early December Google announced a new Global Impact Awards <https://www.google.com/giving/impact-awards.html> program to support organizations using technology and innovative approaches to solve some of the world’s toughest challenges.  A project at the Smithsonian Institution<https://www.google.com/giving/impact-awards.html#consortium> devoted to reducing illegal wildlife trafficking is among the first seven grant recipients.  A $3 million Global Impact Award will go to the Consortium for the Barcode of Life <https://www.barcodeoflife.org/content/about/what-cbol> (CBOL) to create a ‘DNA barcode’ reference library for approximately 2,000 endangered species and 8,000 species that are closely related to them or are commonly confused with them.   We are proud to have helped create CBOL in 2004 with the support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and to have fostered this new phase of CBOL activity.

Peak Farmland

We post Jesse H. Ausubel, Iddo K. Wernick and Paul E. Waggoner, “Peak Farmland and the Prospects for Sparing Nature,” Population and Public Policy: Essays in Honor of Paul Demeny, eds. Geoffrey McNicoll, John Bongaarts, and Ethel P. Churchill, supplement to Population and Development Review, vol. 38. New York: Population Council, 2013. We also post Jesse’s short lecture, Peak Farmland, based on the paper. The lecture is part of the 18 December 2012 symposium at The Rockefeller University in celebration of Paul Demeny’s 80th Birthday and to mark his retirement as editor of Population and Development Review.

 

 

DNA barcoding a hardy urban denizen

In 2009, high school students found novel DNA barcode types in American cockroaches (Periplaneta americana) in New York City (DNAHouse). Hoping to learn more about this feared and despised yet ineradicable urban denizen, we are starting a National Cockroach Project. A quick summary so far:

What     High school students and other citizen scientists collecting and helping analyze American cockroaches using DNA barcoding.

Why      Genetic diversity is a window into evolution and patterns of migration. American cockroaches originated in Africa and hitchhiked around the world on commercial goods. This project asks:

  • Do American cockroaches differ genetically between cities?
  • Do US genetic types match those in other parts of the world?
  • Are there genetic types that represent undiscovered look-alike species?

How      To participate, collect a cockroach!

What you need   

  • American cockroach (dead)
  • Specimen label with collection location, date
  • Mailing materials (form with instructions on NCP home page)

What you get

  • Thrill of scientific discovery using DNA
  • Cool, icky topic to talk about with friends
  • DNA sequences you can analyze to study evolution

For more information including how to track down and identify an American cockroach, see NCP home page. I hope you will find this project fun and participate in the crowd-sourced collection effort!

 

Google search leads to CBOL

Following the first Banbury workshop in March 2003, Jesse Ausubel and I wrote a “Draft Scientific Rationale and Strategy” that described DNA barcoding as ““Google” for Life Forms” (with the name in quotes in case readers didn’t get the reference, hard to imagine today!). One year and a second Banbury workshop later the Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL) was inaugurated at Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC.

This week the Google Foundation announced a $3 million Global Impact Award to CBOL to enable a DNA barcode reference library for endangered species (and their close relatives) as a tool to prevent illegal wildlife trafficking.  As in 2003, this is a wonderfully natural pairing of organizations and a cause for the entire barcoding community to celebrate.

In the language of today, we can see the DNA Barcoding/Google for Life Forms is a kind of “open access” to taxonomic knowledge.  It may turn out that the ability to identify species, like the ability to search the internet, will have wider consequences than we currently forsee. In The Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age (2011), author Nathan Wolfe cites the 2008 high school student DNA barcoding ‘Sushi-gate’ project as “one of the first notable examples of nonscientists “reading” genetic information.” As a Cassandra, Wolfe envisions this as a first step towards DIY bioterrorists but I imagine it is more likely a first step towards DIY biologists sequencing everything in sight, helping monitor the health of the environment, including tracking spread of human and animal diseases.