Applying DNA Barcoding to illuminate Lebanese biodiversity
The Mediterranean Basin constitutes Hotspot biodiversity representing 0.3% of the world’s biodiversity. Lebanon is considered to be an essential site in this basin, with 9,116 characterized species in total (4,486 for fauna and 4,630 for flora from which 91 are endemic).
Significant gaps, however, exist for Fungi, Lichen, Insects, Bryophytes, and Pteridophytes characterization.
Public platforms featuring Lebanon’s biodiversity are poor and sporadic.
This is mainly due to the lack of funding needed to expand this taxonomy.
iBOL (International Barcode of Life) is a research alliance involving nations that have committed both human and financial resources to enable expansion of the global reference database, the development of informatics platforms, and/or the analytical protocols needed to use the reference library to inventory, assess and describe biodiversity.
Thus, iBOL is the largest genomics initiative in biodiversity that aims to create a digital identification system for living species based on DNA sequences, Barcodes. The coding tool was developed by Dr. Paul Hebert-University of Guelph, Canada, who is hosting and developing this project, which now includes more than 32 countries.
Saint-Joseph University is coordinating the involvement of Lebanon as a National Node in iBOL via its instigator Pr. Magda Bou Dagher Kharrat-President of Jouzour Loubnan by involving leading researchers involved in DNA barcoding (BIOSCAN project) and representatives of key organizations supporting the discovery and protection of Lebanese biodiversity.
iBOL initiative will provide us with the opportunity to create our reference library for mammals, insects, and plants in Lebanon, especially the endemic ones using DNA barcoding. Carole Saliba and Liliane Boukhdoud from Pr. Kharrat’s laboratory has participated in the “8th International Barcode of Life conference” that took place in Norway from 17-20 June 2019.
In the framework of this collaboration, Carole Saliba, Edy Haoui and Pierre Malichev spent one-month training at the University of Guelph-Canada this summer (July 2019) to understand the barcoding process and to help expand our reference library by the acquisition of detailed temporal and spatial information on insects from Malaise Traps using DNA barcoding technic.
Using barcoding for species identification will help us understand the biodiversity of our country’s ecosystems and expand our database applying this method to other taxonomic groups.
Author: Carole Saliba – MS Biodiversity Conservation Initiative – Lebanon Faculty of Science USJ - Jouzour Loubnan
