Vår 2025

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

The course is administrated by

Institutt for arktisk og marin biologi

Type of course

Theoretical and practical course for PhD students with an interest in plant and algae biodiversity assessment

Course overlap

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

Course contents

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.

Admission requirements

Who can apply as a singular course student:

PhD student enrolled at another institution than UiT. PhD students must upload a document from their university stating that there are registered PhD students. This group of applicants does not have to prove English proficiency and are exempt from semester fee.
Holders of a master´s degree of five years or 3+2 years (or equivalent) may be admitted. These applicants must upload a Master´s Diploma with Diploma Supplement / English translation of the diploma. Applicants from listed countries must document proficiency in English. To find out if this applies to you, see the following list: Proficiency in English must be documented - list of countries. For more information on accepted English proficiency tests and scores, as well as exemptions from the English proficiency tests, please see the following document: Proficiency in english - PhD level studies

Maximum 15 participants.

If more than 15 applicants, priority will be given as follows:

1. Members of the Graduate school Photosyntech The course is connected to Photosyntech and half of the places will be reserved for Photosyntech members.

2. Places not filled by Photosyntech members can be distributed to other interested PhD students with a second priority to students of Forbio Graduate School.

Objective of the course

After the course the students should have

Knowledge:

You learn about DNA based molecular identification for species diagnostics: DNA Barcoding and 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.

Language of instruction

English

Teaching methods

Intensive course on DNA Metabarcoding data analyses (1 week) which will include lectures and data analyses practicals will be followed by 5 weeks of on-line lectures and data analyses practicals on DNA Barcoding and reference data bases.