A workflow for expanding DNA barcode reference libraries through 'museum harvesting' of natural history collections.

ABSTRACT: Natural history collections are the physical repositories of our knowledge on species, the entities of biodiversity. Making this knowledge accessible to society - through, for example, digitisation or the construction of a validated, global DNA barcode library - is of crucial importance. To this end, we developed and streamlined a workflow for 'museum harvesting' of authoritatively identified Diptera specimens from the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History. Our detailed workflow includes both on-site and off-site processing through specimen selection, labelling, imaging, tissue sampling, databasing and DNA barcoding. This approach was tested by harvesting and DNA barcoding 941 voucher specimens, representing 32 families, 819 genera and 695 identified species collecte

SUBMITTER: Levesque-Beaudin V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10848567 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature