Deciphering Amazon endemic plants with omics tools. Utilizing Bioinformatics for faster description of endemic plant species
Projetct aims:
The focus of the activities is in genomic studies of Amazonian plants. The Amazon is well known for its enormous biodiversity¬. We are, however, currently facing globally a situation where the rate of species extinction is higher than that of new species description. The description of new species traditionally requires close and lengthy studies by taxonomists which is currently not in agreement with the need to describe the existing biodiversity. This situation is known as taxonomic impediment. To contribute to revert this situation, researchers have added the heavy use of molecular tools such as DNA barcodes, mitochondrial and chloroplast genome sequencing and transcriptomics and genomics. This project aims at the implementation of streamlined genomics and bioinformatics tools for the description of new plant species in the Amazon. We will have workshops to disseminate best practices and provide training and decide on best practices for bioinformatics analysis, implement analysis pipelines and test these pipelines in selected examples.
Workshop: Genomics of new plant species
Networking activitities between Brazil and Denmark
Funding: Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation
Collaborators:
Bent Petersen - DTU (Danmarks Tekniske Universitet)
Thomas Sicheritz-Pontén - DTU
Tom Gilbert - University of Copenhagen
Birger Lindberg Møller - University of Copenhagen
Pedro Lage Viana - Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi
Brazil visit, May 2016