Genomic Data Production Systems to Catalogue and Explore Eukaryotic Biodiversity

Biodiversity research is an extremely broad field spanning many different scales - from studying a single species to whole ecosystems or even global patterns. It also encompasses many different taxonomic groups - from charismatic megafauna to the innumerable species of arthropods or other so-called “dark taxa” such as fungi. The unifying theme is the recognition that biodiversity is critical for the health of our planet and human activities are causing unprecedented biodiversity declines that threaten the provision of ecosystem services upon which human society depends. Molecular sequencing technologies are increasingly being employed to support biodiversity research, a key reason being the power they have in overcoming the taxonomic biases which are inherent in biodiversity observations made by traditional methods. Increasingly these molecular sequencing technologies are high throughput, with individual field experiments generating very high volumes of sequence data, of a variety of types. Molecular sequencing initiatives are producing reference catalogues of genetic and genomic biodiversity, which need to be connected to biodiversity research infrastructures that are aggregating knowledge from scientific collections, human-made observations, and the literature. As a community, we have a responsibility to contribute towards ongoing and future global efforts to understand biodiversity and help mitigate the effects of human-induced changes that threaten healthy ecosystems.