Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Systematics Laboratory have joined FISH-BOL, the global Fish Barcode of Life Initiative, to put DNA bar codes on fish to instantly identify the species, where it came from, its nutritional value and other information, NOAA announced Friday.
Part of the global Consortium for the Barcode of Life, started in 2003 to barcode everything from fish, mushroom and flowers, microbes, insects and animals, FISH-BOL plans to collect at least five representatives each of all 30,000-plus marine and freshwater species in the world.
NOAA researchers are building a public library of barcode sequences from museum reference specimens, which provide tissue samples that produce a reference barcode for that specific species. Researchers extract DNA from the tissue, locate and isolate the barcode region, then replicate and sequence the genes.
The records, including DNA barcodes, images and geographic information, species distribution, nomenclature, taxonomic information, natural history and literature citations, are stored in three global databases and are available for free.
NSL researchers have already added to the voucher specimens at the National Museum of History by barcoding fish in the Gulf of Maine and western North Atlantic. Tissues have been collected from 508 specimens representing 162 species.
The system can aid in documenting the biodiversity of poorly sampled species and geographic area to understand populations and sustainably manage global fisheries. For fishery managers and researchers, barcoding can legally verify identifications of fish caught as by-catch and species under regulation, important to protecting endangered species and sustaining fish populations.
