The Bees@Schools Program

Some years after the last run of our successful School Malaise Trap Program we started thinking about new ways to involve citizen scientists at schools in our research. We pitched an idea to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and were granted some funds to set it up and start with a few runs.

The Bees@School project initially involved 100 school classrooms in discerning critical information on the changing geographic distributions of plant-pollinator interactions across Canadat. By combining state-of-the-art DNA barcoding of bees, and the pollen they carry, with distribution and climate change data, we are collecting data to show how distributions of Canada’s bee species are changing along with climate. The project will also help to determine how pollination services shift across Canada, with impacts on food production. The ultimate hope is to provide landscape management advice to improve vital species' chances of persisting in agricultural landscapes and alleviating pollination deficits. 

Each participating school receives a wild bee nest box (perhaps better known as bee hotel) in the spring that is installed throughout the summer. In the fall, nest boxes are sent back to our institute. Here, the contents of the nest boxes will be analyzed using DNA barcoding of the larvae we found and metabarcoding of the pollen that was provisioned for them. 

The project is run by one of my grad students, Sage Handler. She is doing pretty much everything from communication with schools and the public to the laboratory work and data analysis. As you can imagine, her planning for this year's run was thrown into chaos once the COVID-19 pandemic caused major lockdowns including the closure of schools here in Canada. However, we were able to shift gears and run the the program regardless. Thanks to the support of so many teachers 200 traps are currently deployed across Canada. You'll find them in teacher's backyards, school yards or public spaces and now we are developing material (videos, activities for kids at home etc.) to keep this as educational as possible amidst the school closures. This video is just an example on how kids can learn and interact with the program. 

18 Million Euros to explore biodiversity

Our friends at Naturalis in Leiden, Netherlands released this piece of great news today: 

An organized overview of all multicellular flora and fauna in the Netherlands and the infrastructure to identify them semi-automatically. This is what the ARISE megaproject wants to achieve in five to ten years’ time. The Dutch Research Council (NWO), Naturalis Biodiversity Center, the University of Amsterdam, the University of Twente and the Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute are investing a combined total of over 18 million euros. Koos Biesmeijer, leader of the consortium, is very pleased: "ARISE will give a big boost to our understanding of food webs and ecosystems and in the status and trends of our biodiversity."

The ARISE project aims to construct an infrastructure, the only one of its kind in the world, in order to identify and monitor every species of multicellular flora and fauna in the Netherlands. This infrastructure will combine information from DNA, visual/audio recognition and radar data to yield a comprehensive picture of the country's biodiversity. The international community is following the project with great interest as well. 

The ARISE project may prove highly valuable as a means to supply policymakers, water authorities, provinces and other stakeholders with more reliable input in the field of biodiversity.

A new era in species identification

Edwin van Huis, General manager of Naturalis Biodiversity Center, views this as an important step. “The loss of biodiversity is one of the chief threats to humanity's survival. For this reason, we urgently need better instruments for species identification and for monitoring biodiversity. Because only if we know what is, we can make an effort to preserve it.”

According to Annemarie van Wezel, scientific director of the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED/UvA), ARISE will lay the foundation for a new era of systematic ecological research into biodiversity. “Together with scientific partners, we will be demonstrating the added value of this infrastructure at demo sites. We'll be able to better understand patterns of biodiversity and changes in those patterns, which in turn will help us improve efforts to manage that biodiversity.”

Joost Kok, dean at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Twente, is enthusiastic about the unprecedented opportunities this project offers. “The proposed infrastructure brings together many new insights in the fields of artificial intelligence and data science. This wouldn't have been feasible even ten years ago.” Pedro Crous, director of the Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute, adds: “ARISE will make it possible for researchers to identify every species they come across, even if it's one that was previously undiscovered.”

Unique combination: multidisciplinary collaboration and integration of expertise

The Netherlands has long had a leading role in international collaborative partnerships relating to species identification and biodiversity. Because ARISE integrates a variety of techniques, the project is extremely advanced and the only one of its kind in the world. The ARISE project will make it possible to identify species quickly and semi-automatically based on the reference collections of Naturalis and the Westerdijk Institute. The University of Amsterdam is supplying expertise with regard to how ecosystems function and the University of Twente is contributing knowledge of state-of-the-art data science and artificial intelligence. Each of these parties was already exploring the use of sensors, DNA, image recognition, radar, audio and data science for the purpose of species identification.

Access to the most advanced near-real-time identification service

This integrated infrastructure and facility will provide Dutch researchers, nature conservation organizations, government bodies and the business community with access to the most advanced near-real-time identification service for monitoring biodiversity and species detection. This, in turn, will yield new opportunities for understanding how ecosystems function, identifying trends and better integrating attention to biodiversity into solutions for major societal challenges such as the circular economy, nature-inclusive cities and the agricultural cycle. 

The Centre for Biodiversity Genomics: a look inside the world's leading DNA barcoding facility

A new video showing what our institute was busily doing not too long ago. Great way to spend six minutes of your home office time. A tour through the institute by the "Father of DNA Barcoding" himself:

From the inbox: Looking for a project coordinator in CaBOL

Dear fellow barcoders,

we plan to extend our ongoing barcoding efforts in the Caucasus region by a new project, CaBOL. We submitted the CaBOL proposal a while ago and recently received very positive signals from the funder, although not yet the official grant notification.
In order to be ready to start the project soon after COVID loosens its grip, I would like to circulate the job offer for a CaBOL project coordinator (based at ZFMK, Bonn, Germany, but with frequent visits to Georgia and Armenia), please get in touch or forward this:

-->
The Zoological Research Museum A. Koenig in Bonn, Germany, is looking for a full-time project coordinator (m/f/d)

within the project "CaBOL: A Georgian-Armenian-German Initiative to establish a joint Caucasian Biodiversity Research Platform". Conditional on the funding of the CaBOL project through BMBF, the position can be filled for three years.


Your tasks:
• Coordinating the network of CaBOL partner institutes (in Germany, Georgia, and Armenia), monitoring schedules and project funds, reporting, organization of project meetings
• PR, dissemination of results, representing CaBOL
• Coordinating web page development, curating content of web page
• Managing the CaBOL subproject at Museum Koenig
• Guest liaison and supervision of students
• Maintaining contact and procuring samples to taxon experts for species identification
• Data analysis

Your profile:
• University degree in biology or related life science, in the organismic domain
• Especially outstanding organizational skills and bargaining strength
• Very good knowledge of the English language and experience with composing scientific texts and reports
• Basic skills in DNA barcoding, in working with databases, and entomological expertise of advantage
• Intercultural competence
• Readiness to travel frequently (esp. into the Caucasus)

We offer a highly motivating environment at a renowned and pioneering research facility and the possibility to work independently. Salary and benefits are according to a public service position in Germany, TV-L E 13.

Equally qualified severely disabled applicants will be given preference. Qualified women are strongly encouraged to apply.

Please send your application by e-mail attachment, including a detailed CV, until April 19, 2020 to Mrs. Heike Lenz at Stiftung Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig, Leibniz-Institut für Biodiversität der Tiere, Adenauerallee 160, 53113 Bonn or via E-Mail as a summarized PDF to: h.lenz@leibniz-zfmk.de. In case of questions concerning the position please send an email to Jonas Astrin: j.astrin@leibniz-zfmk.de

For more information about our institution see http://www.leibniz-zfmk.de/en
<--

Best wishes
 Jonas Astrin

5 Million Specimens at the CBG collection

Over the past decade and a half our Natural History collection here at the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics continuously grew and today our media team publicly announced that we surpassed the 5 Million Specimen mark. Mind you all of those are digitized (and barcoded).

Here the official press release:

February 2020 marks an important milestone for the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (CBG) at the University of Guelph. CBG’s in-house natural history collection (CBG Collections) has reached five million barcode voucher specimens. Each specimen is fully digitized, sequenced and available online through the Barcode of Life Data System platform (BOLD).

Since its inception in 2006, the barcode reference collection at CBG has grown steadily. The development of DNA barcoding high-throughput workflows has enabled the rapid collection, processing and sequencing of millions of specimens from across the globe. In the last five years, CBG has sorted, prepared and DNA barcoded 800,000 specimens per year before archiving in this unique reference collection. With the recent addition of the PacBio Sequel sequencing platform and launch of the BIOSCAN program, the CBG aspires to grow the collection by one to two million specimens each year.

The final specimen array of 95 specimens added to CBG Collections to reach five million were collected in a Malaise trap located in Guanacaste, Costa Rica as part of the ongoing BIOSCAN project BioAlfa. The array was very diverse, and included some of the following insects:

• Hawk moth (Sphingidae: Xylophanes hannemanni) – these strong-flying moths have been recorded year-round in Costa Rica and have multiple generations per year.
• Spider wasp (Pompilidae) – attack and paralyze spiders to lay their eggs on and feed their young; the adults feed on nectar.
• Tortoise beetle (Chrysomelidae: Hybosa) – a common beetle that can be encountered in your own backyard; they feed on plant tissues and some are agricultural pests.
• Lanternfly (Fulgoridae) – a colourful true-bug found throughout the tropics; despite their name, they do not emit light like a lantern.
• Robber fly or assassin fly (Asilidae) – are ambush predators that target other insects for a meal.
• Leafhopper (Cicadellidae: Erythrogonia) – come in a variety of colours and patterns and are found worldwide; leafhoppers are small insects with over 20,000 species described.

BIOSCAN - new video

In case you did not come across the new version of the BIOSCAN video - really worth watching!

BIOSCAN is iBOL's new seven-year, $180 million global research program that aims to revolutionize our understanding of biodiversity and our capacity to manage it. Involving scientists, research organizations, and citizens, BIOSCAN will explore three major research themes: Species Discovery, Species Interactions, Species Dynamics.

iBOL (International Barcode of Life Consortium) involves researchers in 30+ nations who share a mission to transform biodiversity science through DNA-based approaches with DNA barcoding at its core. iBOL works in partnership with academic, government, and private sector organizations.

PostDoc Bioinformatics and Environmental Genomics

A position to work at McGill partly in collaboration with our lab:

Preferred Disciplines: Biology, Bioinformatics (Postdoc position)
Project length: 2 years, renewable for 3^rd year 

Approx. start date: February 15, 2020
Location: McGill University, Montreal, QC

Summary of Project:

The Postdoctoral Fellow will be involved in long-term and highly replicated laboratory and field experiments on the effect of multiple stressors on the structure and function of aquatic communities. The research will involve developing and implementing bioinformatic tools for analysing metabarcoding, metagenomics and transcriptomics data sets and assessing biodiversity trends for broad taxonomic groups (bacterial, phytoplankton, zooplankton). The fellow will compare biodiversity estimates obtained from traditional sampling techniques with estimates based on refined metabarcoding approaches to describe the biodiversity of contaminated aquatic habitats. The project involves the biodiversity group at McGill University and collaborators from the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (CBG), University of Guelph, University of Quebec at Montreal and University of Montreal.

Research Objectives/Sub-Objectives: 1) Develop sensitive metabarcoding bioinformatics protocols to describing aquatic communities; 2) Investigate the impact of multiple stressors on complex aquatic communities. 

Methodology: 1) Use high-throughput sequencing to develop metabarcoding and metagenomics protocols for describing aquatic communities in complex environmental samples; 2) Validate protocols; 3) Apply protocols on highly replicated field experiments.

Expertise and Skills Needed:

Experience with next generation sequencing or large sequence data and related bioinformatics / computational / programming skills is required. Familiarity with one or more of the following would be an advantage: genomics, transcriptomics, phylogenetic analyses, genome evolution / programming language (R/Unix/Python or Perl). Experience working with aquatic organisms would be an asset. The candidate should have a PhD in evolution / genetics / computational biology, a good publication record and the ability to work well in a collaborative research environment.

Applicants should send a curriculum vitae, short statements of research interests, and 3 representative publications to melania.cristescu@mcgill.ca. The application deadline is January 31, 2020.

McGill University is strongly committed to diversity and equity within its community. McGill University is among Canada’s leading research-intensive universities with students from over 140 countries. The university is located in Montreal, a cosmopolitan city with great cultural and linguistic diversity.