spring 2024
BIO-3025 DNA Metabarcoding: Data processing and interpretation - 5 ECTS
Course content
Biodiversity loss, often referred to as biodiversity crisis, is a global environmental problem causing international concern and demanding urgent counteracting measures. Biodiversity is commonly defined in terms of a number of species present in a particular environment, or in total in the world. This makes species not only one of the fundamental biological concepts but also a focus of global conservation efforts. Currently morphology-based species delimitation provides the baseline for conservation of most plant and animal groups. Development of molecular systematics and computational algorithms has been gradually bringing more and more genetic based approaches to characterizing species as evolutionary units, as compared to morphology based taxonomical units. The course focuses on high-throughput screening approach of DNA sequence variation (DNA Metabarcoding) for species identification and discovery that provides rapid assessments of biodiversity, animal diet assessment, reconstruction of paleo communities, among others. The course will consist of a series of lectures and bioinformatics practicals introducing different aspects of DNA metabarcoding. Bioinformatics practicals will introduce data analysis from raw sequences to taxonomic group assignment to enable basic ecological conclusion.Objectives of the course
After the course the students should have
Knowledge:
- You learn about DNA based molecular identification for species diagnostics: DNA Metabarcoding.
Skills:
- You acquire skills for analyses of raw sequence data: taxonomic assignment and phylogeny reconstruction for species identification and discovery.
General competence:
- You improve your analytical skills to use molecular tools for biodiversity assessment, animal diet assessment and reconstruction of paleo communities.
Information to incoming exchange students
This module is open for exchange students with a bachelor degree in Biology.
Do you have questions about this module? Please check the following website to contact the course coordinator for exchange students at the faculty: https://en.uit.no/education/art?p_document_id=510412
Schedule
Examination
| Examination: | Weighting: | Grade scale: |
|---|---|---|
| Oral exam | 1/2 | A–E, fail F |
| Off campus exam | 1/2 | A–E, fail F |
- About the course
- Campus: Tromsø |
- ECTS: 5
- Course code: BIO-3025
- Responsible unit
- Institutt for arktisk og marin biologi
- Spørsmål om emnet
- E-post: ambstudie@hjelp.uit.no
- Kontaktpersoner
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