The European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA), the International Barcode of Life Europe (iBOL Europe), and the Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF) have signed a historic agreement for biodiversity genomics in Europe. These three large scientific communities have committed to building a coordinated European infrastructure for biodiversity genomics: one that will allow experts to work in a connected system of shared resources, technology, and data.
The recently launched Biodiversity Genomics Europe Plus (BGE+) project has served as a catalyst for this monumental initiative, aligning with the environmental goals of the European Commission, which has welcomed these steps in this direction. EU Commissioner for Fisheries and Oceans, Costas Kadis, recently weighed in on the need for common protocols and comparable data and pointed to the possibility of achieving this goal through an improved and dedicated biodiversity genomics infrastructure for Europe.
"Europe already has extraordinary expertise in taxonomy, genomics, bioinformatics, biodiversity collections, and environmental monitoring. The challenge now is bringing these strengths together in a way that allows us to work at scale in an interconnected system, beyond geographic and political limitations."
Dimitris Koureas, director of BGE+
The initiative emphasises one of the biggest challenges for efficient biodiversity research today: scale. Although more than two million species have been formally described worldwide, scientists estimate that millions more remain unknown, and we all know what this means: we cannot protect what we do not know. But understanding and monitoring biodiversity at the speed required by today's environmental challenges demands new approaches that boost scientific collaboration and interoperability.
As a part of iBOL Europe and a community relying on collaboration, BgBOL seconds the sentiment shared by Gabriela Dankova, BGE+ project manager, that tackling current biodiversity challenges requires effective collaboration of our communities across Europe, open knowledge exchange, solid technical infrastructure, harmonised processes, and, above all, a shared vision.
BgBOL consortium involvement
Stefaniya Kamenova, vice-chair of the Executive Board of BgBOL, as a task leader, will focus on mapping the current biodiversity genomics training landscape in Europe. By utilising tailored surveys and existing networks from communities like ERGA and iBOL-E, the aim is to identify training needs for cascade-funded projects, creating a long-term strategic roadmap for capacity building and knowledge transfer. Concurrently, Prof. Penev, CEO of Pensoft Publishers, and Teodor Georgiev, head of Pensoft’s IT department, have taken up the objective to streamline the scholarly publication of genome reports and barcode data while ensuring it aligns with FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data principles. The ambition is to upgrade to the existing reference data portals with modern metadata standards, effectively converting rich metadata directly into manuscripts via the ARPHA Writing Tool. Ultimately, integrating these publishing workflows with metabarcoding pipelines and data portals aims at building a generalised publication profile that secures detailed data provenance and repository linking.
