Sequence locally, think globally: the Darwin Tree of Life Project

Journal article

The goals of the Earth Biogenome Project-to sequence the genomes of all eukaryotic life on earth-are as daunting as they are ambitious. The Darwin Tree of Life Project was founded to demonstrate the credibility of these goals and to deliver at-scale genome sequences of unprecedented quality for a biogeographic region: the archipelago of islands that constitute Britain and Ireland. The Darwin Tree of Life Project is a collaboration between biodiversity organizations (museums, botanical gardens, and biodiversity institutes) and genomics institutes. Together, we have built a workflow that collects specimens from the field, robustly identifies them, performs sequencing, generates high-quality, curated assemblies, and releases these openly for the global community to use to build future science and conservation efforts.

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: National Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• Volume: 119
• Issue: 4
• Article number: e2115642118
• Publication date: 2022-01-18
• Acceptance date: 2021-11-01
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2115642118
• EISSN: 1091-6490
• ISSN: 0027-8424
• Pmid: 35042805
• Language: English
• Keywords: biological evolution; biodiversity; workflow; molecular evolution; genomics; specimen handling; Eukaryota; DNA sequence analysis; FFR; genetic selection; Darwin Tree of Life Project Consortium; phylogeny; genome