What is BOLI?

The Barcode of Life Initiative is a collection of research projects, organizations, and individuals devoted to developing DNA barcoding as a global standard for identifying species.  BOLI began in 2003 at the Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding at the University of Guelph in Ontario.  The Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL) and the Canadian Barcode of Life Network (BOLNET) formed shortly thereafter.  The largest barcoding projects have been launched by these organizations.  Other barcoding projects have been launched by taxonomists working on other initiatives, such as the Census of Marine Life, or by research teams or individual taxonomists.

The common threads that run through all of these projects and make them part of a coherent research initiative are:

• Open access to data:  BOLI’s central goal is the creation of a publicly accessible database of barcode data that anyone can use to identify organisms;
• Standardization:  By agreeing on a standard barcode region, BOLI projects are making it possible to identify an unknown organism by sequencing just one gene region;
• Minimalism:  Sequencing more gene regions and longer gene sequences might make species identification more accurate, but it would also become enormously more expensive and time-consuming.  BOLI projects use the minimum genetic information so that identifications will be more cost-effective; and
• Global participation.  Biodiversity does not reflect national borders, and taxonomic research requires international cooperation.  BOLI projects usually involve participants from many continents and they always involve international cooperation.