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6 - Perspective: Après le déluge: ubiquitous field barcoding should drive 21st century taxonomy

from Part II - Next Generation Biodiversity Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2016

Richard M. Bateman
Affiliation:
Jodrell Laboratory, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK
Peter D. Olson
Affiliation:
Natural History Museum, London
Joseph Hughes
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow
James A. Cotton
Affiliation:
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge
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Summary

Coming soon: the pocket DNA sequencer

Title of Article in Science, October 1998

Handheld DNA scanners to ID instantly

Title of Article in National Geographic, January 2005

Pocket Sequencer is the answer for musicians wishing to create music whenever the mood strikes …

iZ Corporation website, April 2012

Results from Oxford Nanopore's MinION are promising, but fall short of high expectations

Subtitle of news article in Nature, February 2014

Prologue

Over the past decade, the various potential practical benefits offered by DNA ‘barcoding’ have been rehearsed ad nauseam, typically with at least modest exaggeration. However, definitions of barcoding, most of which remain rooted in the already passé holy grail of identifying the perfect genic region to characterize (and thereby identify) all life, have failed to keep pace with developments in sequencing technology. Solid-state desktop sequencers are becoming de rigueur in molecular laboratories, and palmtop sequencers are literally undergoing field trials – albeit field trials that are proving disappointingly protracted. Discussion of the implications of the eventual (hopefully imminent) widespread availability of such pocket sequencers has been extraordinarily limited and unidirectional, focusing on the advances that technologists can offer likely professional users, notably field ecologists. But even less consideration has been given to the converse flow of information – specifically, the immense benefits that field biologists could feed into today's ailing global taxonomic enterprise. We have also ignored the likely consequences of the literal deluge of DNA sequences and associated data that will be generated by the overlooked majority of users of such devices who will be ‘non-professionals’, notably students and enthusiastic amateur natural historians.

The ideal palmtop device will not only gather DNA sequences from appropriate barcoding regions but will also record fixed-scale images of the material taken prior to analysis, together with metre-accuracy GPS coordinates. The palmtop will communicate instantly via satellite with major DNA and image databases, providing the field analyst with a hierarchy of likely identifications while s/he is still present at the field locality. If correctly organized and populated with accurate data, both molecular and morphological, core databases such as GenBank could also assess the potential scientific interest of the analysed material, and when appropriate, request immediate acquisition of morphological and/or molecular vouchers for subsequent deposition in major natural history collections.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2016

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