Tag Archives: IBOL

The 8th International Barcode of Life (IBOL) Conference

Logo by Åshild Stolsmo Viken, Norwegian Biodiversity Information Centre

For a week in June, a significant portion of the world’s barcoding community descended on the fair city of Trondheim. 460 participants from 61 countries met up to share their work, exchange ideas, and meet old and new fellow barcoders.

IBOL2019 delegates, photo by Åge Hojem CC-BY-SA-4.0

The University Museum of Bergen was well represented, with 10 scientific contributions being presented.

All the abstracts can be found in this special edition of the journal Genome.

Contributions people from UMB was involved with include:
DNA barcoding reveals cryptic diversity and genetic connectivity in the deep-sea annelids across the Greenland–Scotland Ridge (N. Budaeva et al.)

DNA barcoding assessment of species diversity in marine bristle worms (Annelida), integrating barcoding with traditional morphology-based taxonomy (T. Bakken et al.)

Five years as national research infrastructure: status of the Norwegian Barcode of Life Network (NorBOL) (T. Ekrem et al.)

Molecular study of Chaetozone Malmgren (Annelida, Polychaeta) reveals hidden diversity of a common benthic polychaete (M. Grosse et al.)

DNA barcodes of Nordic Echinodermata (K. Kongshavn et al.)

Ctenophores — native aliens in Norwegian waters (S. Majaneva et al.)

DNA barcoding of Norwegian forest Oribatida — preliminary results reveal several taxonomic problems (A. Seniczak and B. Jordal)

A barcode gap analysis for aquatic biomonitoring in Europe (H. Weigand et al.)

DNA barcoding marine fauna with NorBOL — current status (E. Willassen et al.)

It was a highly enjoyable conference to participate in, both as part of the support structure (“Team Orange”), and as presenter and/or audience.

A subset of “Team Orange”, who contributed to the smooth running of the event (photo: T. Ekrem)

The NorBOL barcode managers together with Paul Hebert, a Canada Research Chair and Director of the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics at the University of Guelph – and one of the masterminds behind IBOL.

The conference venue did a excellent job keeping us energized and happy with a steady supply of wonderful food and caffeinated beverages – and we were treated to a lovely organ concert in the Nidaros cathedral and a delicious dinner reception at  the Archbishop’s Palace.

Oh, my.

The introduction of BIOSCAN, “the newest phase of a 15-year research program that will transform our understanding of, and integration with global biodiversity” was greeted with enthusiasm – you can read more about this ambitious venture on the IBOL web pages.

It was a excellent conference, and we look  forward to continuing our work on building a validated barcode reference library for species found in Norway through the numerous Norwegian Taxonomy Initiative projects (Artsprosjekt) we have running here at UMB.

-Katrine

The 7th International Barcode of Life (IBOL) conference

 IBOL 2017 took place in the most fantastic venue imaginable: inside Kruger National Park in South Africa! Hosted by the African Centre for DNA Barcoding (ACDB) and the University of Johannesburg (UJ),  the conference gathered ~450 participants from 72 different countries for a week of networking, knowledge sharing, and unforgettable experiences.

Participants of IBOL 2017. Photo by J. Potgieter

Located at the conference centre in Skukuza rest camp, IBOL 2017 filled every available room with sessions ranging from forensic applications of barcoding to the most cutting edge technology. A excellent overview of the topic trends is presented as an article that can be found here (.pdf, open access)

Norway was well represented, with 15 delegates and 23 contributions from various universities, museums and organisations. You can read more about that, and about Trondheim being the host of the next IBOL conference (to take place 17th-20th of June 2019) here (only in Norwegian atm).

The invertebrate collections of UM Bergen participated with five posters and three lightning talks on marine barcoding: three posters focussing on Norwegian waters, and two related to our MIWA-project (Marine Invertebrates of Western Africa, blog here). A lightning presentation is a five minute talk where the author gets to present their poster before the poster session.

Attending from UM were Jon, Tom and Katrine – as well as Lloyd from Ghana, who has been a regular guest researcher here for some time now, working with the MIWA polychaetes together with us.

Tom, Jon and Katrine on their way to Kruger (photo: THR)

Tom, Katrine, Jon and Lloyd attending the game drive during the conference (Photo: THR)

Our contributions:

Our five posters

Barcoding of marine invertebrates from Norway through NorBOL
Katrine Kongshavn, Jon A. Kongsrud, Tom Alvestad, Endre Willassen

Investigating the marine invertebrate fauna of the West African continental shelf with DNA barcodes
Endre Willassen, Jon A. Kongsrud, Katrine Kongshavn, Manuel A.E. Malaquias, Tom Alvestad

Building a comprehensive barcode reference library of the Norwegian Echinodermata through NorBOL – an ongoing effort
Tom Alvestad, Katrine Kongshavn, Jon A Kongsrud, Torkild Bakken, Kennet Lundin, Hans T Rapp, Endre Willassen

Diversity and species distributions of Glyceriformia (Annelida, Polychaeta) in shelf areas off western Africa
Lloyd Allotey, Tom Alvestad, Jon A Kongsrud, Akanbi B Williams, Katrine Kongshavn, Endre Willassen

Assessing species diversity in marine bristle worms (Annelida, Polychaeta): integrating barcoding with traditional morphology-based taxonomy
Jon A Kongsrud, Torkild Bakken, Eivind Oug, Tom Alvestad, Arne Nygren, Katrine Kongshavn, Nataliya Budaeva, Maria Capa, Endre Willassen

All the posters are available on the conference website. Do make sure to check the photo galleries there as well!

It was occasionally challenging to focus on the excellent presentations, as temptations like this kept appearing – but we prevailed, and return with a lot of new knowledge and acquaintances.

That’s not to say that we did not make the most of our free time to go and explore the park!

Here are some of the amazing encounters Kruger NP offered us (Katrine’s photos):

 

We had a fantastic time, our thanks to the organizers and the lovely team of volunteers for all their hard work!

-Jon, Tom, Lloyd & Katrine

PS: If you wish to stay updated on news from the conference, follow @DNABarcodes, #IBOL2017, and for news on the upcoming IBOL2019; @norwbol on Twitter