Metadata standards and practical guidelines for specimen and DNA curation when building barcode reference libraries for aquatic life

Frédéric Rimet (1) , Eva Aylagas (2) , Ángel Borja (3, 4) , Agnes Bouchez (1) , Alexis Canino (1) , Christian Chauvin (5) , Teofana Chonova (1) , Fedor Ciampor Jr (6) , Filipe O. Costa (7) , Benoit J.D. Ferrari (8) , Romain Gastineau (9) , Chloé Goulon (1) , Muriel Gugger (10) , Maria Holzmann (11) , Regine Jahn (12) , Maria Kahlert (13) , Wolf-Henning Kusber (12) , Christophe Laplace-Treyture (5) , Florian Leese (14) , Frederik Leliaert (15) , David G. Mann (16, 17) , Frédéric Marchand (18) , Vona Méléder (19) , Jan Pawlowski (11, 20, 21) , Serena Rasconi (1) , Sinziana Rivera (1) , Rodolphe Rougerie (22) , Magali Schweizer (23) , Rosa Trobajo (16) , Valentin Vasselon (24) , Régis Vivien (8) , Alexander Weigand (25) , Andrzej Witkowski (9) , Jonas Zimmermann (12) , Torbjørn Ekrem (26)

1 CARRTEL - Centre Alpin de Recherche sur les Réseaux Trophiques et Ecosystèmes Limniques
2 KAUST - King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
3 BRTA - Basque Research and Technology Alliance
4 King Abdulaziz University
5 UR EABX - Ecosystèmes aquatiques et changements globaux
6 SAS - Slovak Academy of Science [Bratislava]
7 Universidade do Minho = University of Minho [Braga]
8 Swiss Centre for Applied Ecotoxicology (Ecotox Center)
9 ZUT - West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin
10 Collection des Cyanobactéries
11 UNIGE - Université de Genève = University of Geneva
12 Freie Universität Berlin
13 SLU - Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
14 Universitat Duisberg-Essen
15 Plantentuin - Meise Botanic Garden [Belgium]
16 IRTA - Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology [Sant Carles de la Ràpita]
17 Royal Botanic Garden [Edinburgh]
18 U3E - Unité Expérimentale d'Ecologie et d'Ecotoxicologie Aquatique - U3E (Rennes, France)
19 UN - Université de Nantes
20 PAN - Polish Academy of Sciences
21 ID-Gene ecodiagnostics [Geneva]
22 ISYEB - Institut de Systématique, Evolution, Biodiversité
23 LPG - Laboratoire de Planétologie et Géodynamique [UMR 6112]
24 SCIMABIO Interface SAS
25 MNHN - Musée National d'Histoire Naturelle de Luxembourg
26 NTNU - Norwegian University of Science and Technology [Trondheim]

DNA barcoding and metabarcoding is increasingly used to effectively and precisely assess and monitor biodiversity in aquatic ecosystems. As these methods rely on data availability and quality of barcode reference libraries, it is important to develop and follow best practices to ensure optimal quality and traceability of the metadata associated with the reference barcodes used for identification. Sufficient metadata, as well as vouchers, corresponding to each reference barcode must be available to ensure reliable barcode library curation and, thereby, provide trustworthy baselines for downstream molecular species identification. This document (1) specifies the data and metadata required to ensure the relevance, the accessibility and traceability of DNA barcodes and (2) specifies the recommendations for DNA harvesting and for the storage of both voucher specimens/samples and barcode data.

Keywords: aquatic organisms; barcode; DNA; metadata; quality; reference library; traceability; aquatic organisms

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]

Frédéric Rimet, Eva Aylagas, Ángel Borja, Agnes Bouchez, Alexis Canino, et al.. Metadata standards and practical guidelines for specimen and DNA curation when building barcode reference libraries for aquatic life. Metabarcoding and Metagenomics, 2021, 5, pp.e58056. ⟨10.3897/mbmg.5.58056⟩. ⟨pasteur-03159791⟩