BIO-3025 DNA Metabarcoding: Data processing and interpretation - 5 stp

Institutt for arktisk og marin biologi

BIO-8025 DNA Metabarcoding: Data processing and interpretation 5 ects

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.

English

Intensive course on DNA Metabarcoding data analyses (1 week) which will include lectures and data analyses practicals. Followed by 5 weeks of molecular laboratory training with lectures and data analyses practicals.