Plants – iBOL Europe

UKBOL

Kasia Fantoni — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 13:57:15 +0000

Website
Geographical region(s): United Kingdom
Ecosystem(s) coverage: Freshwater, Marine, Terrestrial
Taxonomic group(s): Arthropods (insects), Arthropods (non-insects), Chromista, Fungi and Lichens, Plants
Host institute(s): Natural History Museum of London
Timespan: 2022 – ongoing
Description: The UK Barcode of Life (UKBOL) project comprises a network of UK government agencies, biodiversity institutions and individual scientists engaged in DNA barcoding of the biota of the United Kingdom.

GrBOL – Greek Barcode of Life

Kasia Fantoni — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 13:44:43 +0000

Website
Geographical region(s): Greece and surrounding regions
Ecosystem(s) coverage: Freshwater, Marine, Terrestrial
Taxonomic group(s): Arthropods (insects), Arthropods (non-insects), Fungi and Lichens, Plants
Host institute(s): Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Timespan: 2024 – ongoing
Description: GrBOL is a national network of various biodiversity institutions in Greece, coordinated by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. GrBOL partners provide their professional taxonomic expertise and existing infrastructure (collections/biobanks, databases, bioinformatics platforms and laboratories) for the comprehensive collection, recording, description and sequencing of animal, plant and fungal species in Greece. The sequences and metadata generated within GrBOL will be integrated into the global barcode reference database “BOLD”.

METAPLANTCODE

Kasia Fantoni — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 10:08:03 +0000

Website: https://metaplantcode.github.io/metaplantcode/index.html
Geographical region: Europe
Ecosystem coverage: Terrestrial, Coastal
Taxonomic group(s): Plants
Host institute(s): University of Kassel, Germany
Time span: Ongoing (2024-2027)
Description: METAPLANTCODE presents a unique collaborative and transnational approach to test, optimise, harmonise and recommend best practices for plant metabarcoding for samples with varying degrees of species complexity, contamination, and DNA degradation using case studies across Europe. The innovative combination of accelerated molecular plant monitoring and the integration of diverse biodiversity data with optimised and automated pipelines will fill knowledge gaps on the state of biodiversity, interdependencies, and dynamics.

Italian National Biodiversity Future Center NBFC

Gabriela Dankova — Sun, 24 Mar 2024 13:28:08 +0000

Website
Geographical region(s): Italy
Ecosystem coverage: Freshwater, Marine, Terrestrial
Taxonomic group(s): All
Institute(s): Bringing together over 1,500 researchers belonging to 48 partner organisations (Universities and Research institutes) working on biodiversity topics.
Time span: Ongoing
Description: Builds a genetic/genomic platform that will also include DNA barcoding data from all the flora and fauna of Italy.

TurkBOL – Turkish Barcode of Life

iBOL Europe — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 13:08:56 +0000

Website
Geographical region(s): Turkey
Ecosystem coverage: Freshwater, Marine, Terrestrial
Taxonomic group(s): Arthropods (insects), Arthropods (non insects), Chordates, Plants, Fungi & lichens, Other metazoa
Host institute(s): Ankara University (Turkey)
Time span: Ongoing
Description: DNA barcoding and eDNA metabarcoding of terrestrial and aquatic species from microorganisms to mammals.

TETTRIS

iBOL Europe — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 13:08:55 +0000

Website
Geographical region(s): Trans boundary
Ecosystem coverage: Freshwater, Marine, Terrestrial
Taxonomic group(s): Arthropods (insects), Arthropods (non insects), Chordates, Plants, Fungi & lichens, Other metazoa, Protista, Others
Host institute(s): CETAF
Time span: Ongoing
Description: Provision of new mechanisms and tools to transfer taxonomic fundamental knowledge to other societal and scientific actors.

SpainBOL – Spanish Barcode of Life Network and the The Canary Island Barcode consortium

iBOL Europe — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 13:08:50 +0000

No Website
Geographical region(s): Macaronesia
Ecosystem coverage: Terrestrial
Taxonomic group(s): Arthropods (insects), Arthropods (non insects), Plants
Host institute(s): The Canary Island Barcode consortium (Spain)
Time span: Ongoing
Description: Spain only recently associated to the iBOL consortium, and is represented by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). As such, the national node itself has not been formalised. Coordination within the node involves four Canary Island-based CSIC researchers. Drs Paula Arribas and Carmelo Andújar develop and implement metabarcoding approaches and HTS tools for the analysis of arthropod diversity within soils. Dr Jairo Patiño applies HTS approaches for multi-locus barcoding of plant species. Prof. Brent Emerson has a specific interest in arthropod diversity and the integration of barcode data with other data sources (e.g. species trait, distribution, environment, genomic, phylogenetic) for ecological and evolutionary understanding. To this end he is driving a barcode reference library initiative for the arthropods of the Canary Islands. Our focus will be to develop the Spanish node, and explore opportunities for implementation. The Canary Island Barcode consortium currently comprises researchers from two Canary Island-based institutes, the Institute of Natural Products and Agrobiology (IPNA) of the Spanish National Research Council, and the University of La Laguna. The primary activities of the consortium are the development of a barcode reference library for the arthropods of the Canary Islands, and the development and implementation of metabarcoding protocols for arthropods.

Plant ID

iBOL Europe — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 13:08:47 +0000

No website
Geographical region(s): Greece, Bulgaria, N. Macedonia
Ecosystem coverage: Freshwater, Terrestrial
Taxonomic group(s): Plants
Host institute(s): University of Thessaly (Greece)
Time span: Finished
Description: Plants are essential for many aspects of our daily lives as they provide food, medicines, and construction materials. Plants also affect us negatively through pollen and resulting allergies, poisonous species in gardens and pastures and as adulterants in herbal medicines, and as invasive aliens in marine, freshwater and terrestrial environments. Understanding and valorising botanical biodiversity requires accurate, modern and rapid assessment approaches. Plant diversity worldwide is under threat from destruction of natural habitats due to human population growth related consequences as well as climate change impacts on sensitive ecosystems. It is in our capacity to study, map and describe this diversity, and plant systematics and taxonomy has suffered from a loss of research and institutional funds as research has become more competitive and taxonomy was considered too descriptive to compete with emerging fundamental research.

NorBOL – Norwegian Barcode of Life Network

iBOL Europe — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 13:08:43 +0000

Website
Geographical region(s): Norway, Trans boundary
Ecosystem coverage: Freshwater, Marine, Terrestrial
Taxonomic group(s): Arthropods (insects), Plants, Fungi & lichens, Other metazoa
Host institute(s): NTNU University Museum (Norway)
Time span: Ongoing
Description: NorBOL primary goal is building barcode reference library of all multicellular species in Norway as well as education, dissemination to stakeholders and public outreach.

National insect monitoring in Norway

iBOL Europe — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 13:08:42 +0000

Website
Geographical region(s): Norway, Trans boundary
Ecosystem coverage: Freshwater, Marine, Terrestrial
Taxonomic group(s): Arthropods (insects), Arthropods (non insects), Chordates, Plants, Fungi & lichens, Other metazoa, Protista
Host institute(s): Norwegian institute for nature research – NINA (Norway)
Time span: Ongoing
Description: NINA conducts a general monitoring of terrestrial insects in Norway since 2020, on behalf of the Norwegian Environmental Agency (https://www.miljodirektoratet.no/). As of 2021, the monitoring is limited to the ecosystems “Forest” and “Semi-natural land”.