All Birds Barcoding Initiative (ABBI) goal: create DNA barcode library for world birds

1
All Birds Barcoding Initiative (ABBI)
goalcreate DNA barcode library for world birds
2
Why barcode birds?

• Practical tool for specimen identification
• Bird strike remains
• Non-breeding or juvenile forms in banding
  operations
• Products from endangered species

Help speed discovery of new species

• Many undiscovered bird species are lurking
  in museum drawers
• DNA barcode testing of museum specimens is
  relatively fast,
• cheap way to flag genetically divergent
  specimens

Insight into mitochondrial evolution and
population biology

• Avian taxonomy combined with standardized
  mtDNA
• analysis is a powerful tool for exploring
  biology underlying
• genetic differences within and among
  species
• Limited intraspecific variation supports
  emerging view that
• recurrent selective sweeps prune genetic
  diversity

3
Target 9,933 bird species1Organization 6
regional working groupsParticipants 60
researchers, 32 countries
Map adapted from The Speciation and Biogeography
of Birds, Newton, 2003

1. ABBI target list based on The Clements Checklist
   of Birds of the World, 2007

4
Resources 70 of world birds are in frozen
tissue collections (gt230,000 specimens
representing 6,853 species)
Access to tissues and restrictions on transport
of specimens may be limiting
New collecting and non-tissue museum holdings
(10 million avian skins, bones, etc) to help
fill in gaps
These approaches are more expensive, slower
Feather or blood samples from live birds
Photographs as e-vouchers in reference database?
5
September 2007 10,000 barcodes from 2,080
species (21 world birds)
Goal 100,000 barcodes from 10,000 birds