News

Go behind the scenes and meet Dr. Eric Schuettpelz, a botanist who studies ferns at the National Museum of Natural History. Have you ever noticed how distinct ferns look and wondered why? Get a glimpse of the diversity of ferns in the Smithsonian's plant collection. Take a closer look with Eric at the unique aspects of fern life cycles. Figure out what having spores, but not seeds, means for a fern's fertility. Challenge yourself to better understand the unusual flexibility of fern reproduction.

The flora of the Hawaiian Islands is comprised of ~90% endemic specie, many of which are threatened or endangered. In 2016 the Global Genome Initiative funded a project, the goal of which was to collect genomic quality DNA samples of as many endemic plant species as possible from the Hawaiian Islands to aid in conservation strategies. The project specifically targeted the endemic plant species of the Compositae from the island of Hawaii as a preliminary effort with collections of other endemic taxa when visiting collecting sites.

The Global Genome Initiative Buck Fellowships are two-year fellowships that contribute specifically to the goals of the Global Genome Initiative (GGI) at the National Museum of Natural History and include a 60% time commitment to biodiversity genomic research and 40% commitment to other GGI related activities.  The fellowships are aimed at increasing the capacity for biodiversity genomics at the National Museum of Natural History.

With the rapid adoption of long-read sequencing and other technologies that require high molecular weight DNA input, there is rising demand for high-quality samples from biorepositories around the world. To accommodate this, scientists at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, developed and published a rapid, inexpensive method for quantifying DNA quality.

The GGBN-GGI Awards Program sponsored by the Global Genome Initiative provides funding in support of projects that promote the discoverability of new genetic collections through the Global Genome Biodiversity Network’s Data Portal (http://www.ggbn.org/ ).

Genome sequencing initiatives like the Arthropod i5k project and other biodiversity genomics research rely on access to high quality DNA and/or tissue. Global collection initiatives such as the Smithsonian Global Genome Initiative (GGI) and its partner network, the Global Genome Biodiversity Network (GGBN) aim to provide access to these resources at high-quality standards. Here, we review progress toward providing genomic resources (tissues, DNA, genomes) for terrestrial arthropods, a megadiverse animal group, and compare progress in genome sequencing to all other animals....

Global Genome Biodiversity Network Conference 2018
Vienna, Austria
May 22-25, 2018

The Global Genome Initiative (GGI) Rolling Awards Program provides funding to Smithsonian-affiliated researchers for projects that support GGI goals of expeditionary research and development of genomic biodiversity science at the SI. Requests up to $30,000 with clear budget justifications will be considered. Smaller proposals to enhance field work and/or acquire genomic collections are especially encouraged. Proposals with a DNA barcoding component may be jointly considered and/or funded by the SI Barcode Network.

The Specify Software Project (www.specifysoftware.org) is pleased to announce the fruition of a joint software effort with the Global Genome Biodiversity Network (www.ggbn.org) to facilitate the communication of genetic sample data to the GGBN Portal from biological museums around the world...

Read the full post here: http://www.sustain.specifysoftware.org/2017/11/15/1913/

The Peer-Review Awards Program sponsored by the Global Genome Initiative (GGI) provides funding to Smithsoninan and Affiliated Researchers for projects that support expeditionary research, the collection of genomic quality archival biological tissues, and the development of genomic biodiversity science.