GrBOL launches to catalogue Greek biodiversity
The Greek Barcode of Life (GrBOL), a national node of the International Barcode of Life (iBOL) consortium, was launched to catalogue the genetic diversity of animals, fungi, and plants in Greece.
The project is a collaborative effort involving various institutions across Greece, bringing together taxonomic expertise and existing infrastructure, such as collections, biobanks, databases, bioinformatics platforms, and laboratories. GrBOL will use this taxonomic expertise and infrastructure for the comprehensive collection, recording, description and sequencing of animal, plant and fungal species in Greece.
GrBOL plans to build a national genetic biodiversity library using taxonomy and DNA barcoding. The biodiversity information and barcodes will then be made publicly available in the BOLD and NCBI GenBank databases.
The launch of GrBOL was celebrated at an event held at the University of Thessaloniki on 7 October 2024. The event included contributions from key figures in the iBOL community and representatives from Greek governmental bodies.