Acronym: MolChaRE
Collaborators: Nathalie Smitz (JEMU-RMCA), Gontran Sonet (JEMU-RBINS), Massimiliano Virgilio (JEMU-RMCA), Yves Samyn (RBINS), Didier VandenSpiegel (RMCA), Gustav Paulay (Florida Museum of Natural History, U.S.A.), Tim O’Hara (Museum Victoria, Australia), Bruno Danis (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium)
Year: 2017
Summary: About 8,000 species of echinoderms have been described worldwide and, according to the Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD, http://www.boldsystems.org), approximately a forth of them have been barcoded. However, less than 300 of the ca. 29,000 echinoderm barcode records available on BOLD are from South Africa, a country with a coastline of more than 2,500 km on both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. This project will in the first place deliver COI DNA sequences obtained from specimens and taxa collected in locations were no such records are known. Sequences of these >350 specimens will be publicly available on GenBank and BOLD and will allow cross-identifications of specimens of sea urchins, sea cucumbers, ophiuroids and starfish identified through traditional taxonomy. In particular, they will help identifying crinoids sampled during five expeditions in South Africa. For the sea cucumbers of the family Holothuriidae, barcodes will be used in an integrative systematical revision currently developed at the University of Florida. Finally, updated checklists of the shallow water echinoderms of KwaZulu-Natal will be elaborated using the DNA data produced here.
Output:
- Peer-reviewed paper: DNA barcoding echinoderms from the East Coast of South Africa. The challenge to maintain DNA data connected with taxonomy. Sonet G, Smitz N, Vangestel C, Samyn Y (2022). PLoS ONE 17(10): e0270321.
- Abstract presented at the 7th International Barcode of Life Conference: DNA barcoding echinoderms of the East Coast of South Africa. Samyn Y., Sonet G., Smitz N. & Meganck K., 2017. In: Scientific abstracts from the 7th International Barcode of Life Conference, Genome, vol. 60, pp. 992.
- Abstract presented at the 7th International Barcode of Life Conference: Integrative taxonomy of the crinoids (Echinodermata: Crinoidea) of the shallow-waters of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Samyn, Y., Sanctobin, G., Meganck, K. & Smitz, N. 2017. In: Scientific abstracts from the 7th International Barcode of Life Conference, Genome, vol. 60, pp. 992.