Staff directory
Nathalie Smitz
Biology
Invertebrates
Invertebrates
Publication details
Gombeer, S., Meganck, K., Smitz, N., Van Bourgonie, Y R., De Meyer, M. & Backeljau, T. 2019. ‘Barcoding organisms and tissues of policy concern: experiences from three years of BopCo’. 8th International Barcode of Life Conference. Book of abstracts.
Conference abstract
The Barcoding Facility for Organisms and Tissues of Policy Concern (BopCo) is jointly run by the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) and the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA), and is part of the Belgian federal contribution to the European Research Infrastructure Consortium LifeWatch. As such, BopCo is financed by the Belgian Science Policy Office. BopCo aims to act as a focal point for the identification of biological materials of policy concern for all stakeholders who deal with such samples and who are in need of an accurate identification. Therefore, BopCo provides identifications upon request or connects individuals with taxonomic experts who possess the required know-how and means to identify the sample(s) and who can provide background information on the concerned organisms. Morphological species traits, DNA barcoding and, if needed or relevant, other DNA-based technologies are being used, alone or in combination, to provide reliable taxonomic identifications. A prerequisite to use DNA barcoding is the availability of comprehensive and reliable reference barcode libraries. Therefore, BopCo also contributes to populating DNA barcode databases of taxa of policy concern. To this end, BopCo produces new DNA barcodes, either at its own initiative or in collaboration with research institutes, governmental organisations, universities and others. The BopCo project was first announced at the 4th iBOL conference in 2011, but only started running at the end of 2015. Now, little over three years into the project, we present some of our output and experiences, examples of identification requests, identification projects and collaborative activities including cases of several policy concern categories like endangered and protected species, agricultural pest species, human and veterinary disease organisms and their vectors, organisms of the food chain, species of forensic interest, and invasive species.