Developing a Genomic Blueprint for a Bio-literate Future

Despite 260 years of taxonomic scrutiny, only a fraction of the Earth’s species have been scientifically named, rendering humans largely bio-illiterate. Our understanding of biodiversity progresses slowly because of the vast number of species and inefficiency of traditional approaches. Recent development in DNA technologies enables recovery of organisms’ genetic information with unprecedented efficiency. As all relevant information is encoded in DNA, the delimitation of species and clarification of their interconnections by their DNA provide us with novel, efficient solutions. We investigate brand new approaches using parasitic wasps, gall midges and sawflies as models. The diversity of these insect groups remains poorly understood because of their tiny size and enormous species count. The new approaches offer the promise that during the next decades research on biodiversity can be done much more efficiently than before, also enabling automated DNA-based identification of species.