• Background
  • Letter of Intent
  • Multilingual Fact Sheet
  • Past Events
• iBOL Workshop
  • Program
  • Presentations
  • Participants
  • Summary of Meeting
• Events
• How to Help
• Links

For more information, click to view the multilingual iBOL fact sheet.

Available Translations:

English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Swedish

The International Barcode of Life Project

The International Barcode of Life Project (iBOL) is based on a simple, but powerful premise. It argues that sequence diversity in short, standardized gene regions (i.e. DNA barcodes) can provide a sophisticated tool for both the identification of known species and the discovery of new ones. Further, by developing a system for species identification based on digital characters, DNA barcoding promises automated identifications. This advance will massively improve our capacity to monitor, know and manage biodiversity with profound societal and economic benefits. DNA barcoding also promises newly sophisticated approaches for both the identification of the vectors of zoonotic diseases, and for the disease organisms themselves. In short, its implications are broad.

Current plans call for iBOL to launch as an alliance of researchers and biodiversity organizations in 21 nations. Six nations will participate as Developing Nodes. They will focus on the collection, identification, and curation of specimens. The 14 nations involved as Regional and Central Nodes will additionally participate in barcode acquisition with the Central Nodes maintaining large core sequencing facilities. Finally, the Central Nodes will support the bioinformatics facilities required to share barcode records to all nations. 

List of Countries involved:

Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Madagascar, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, South Africa, Sri Lanka, UK, USA.

Taxonomic Support

iBOL will only succeed if the taxonomic community is deeply involved in the collection, identification and curation of specimens. Nearly half of the iBOL budget will be directed to support these activities.