The Barcoding Fauna Bavarica (BFB) is an All Species
Barcoding campaign ran by the Zoologische Staatssammlung in
Munich and the Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding (www.
faunabavarica.de). Core funding comes from the Bavarian Ministry
for Science, Research and the Arts and from Genome Canada
through the Ontario Genomics Institute. The initial funding period is
from 2009–2013. Bavaria has the highest biodiversity of all German
states, with at least 35000 animal species reported, representing a
significant portion of the central European species diversity.
Ecoregions include high altitude biomes, foothill areas and forested
lowlands. The Zoologische Staatssammlung (ZSM) is one of the
largest German natural history research institutions. It holds the
world’s largest collection of Lepidoptera and Germany’s largest
Hymenoptera collection. Since mid-2009, the BFB project has
contributed DNA barcode records from 7208 specimens representing
3000 species and is therefore, after less than one year, one of the
most comprehensive sources for local DNA barcode data. The focus
groups for the initial phase were Lepidoptera (1820 species
barcoded), bees (316 species), ants (39 species) and aquatic insects
(322 species). Work on these focal groups will continue during 2010,
with the goal to complete 80% of the Bavarian focal group species by
the end of the year. New focal groups are Diptera, Mollusca, all
Vertebrata and terrestrial Coleoptera, targeting 2000 species in 2010.
Most tissue samples come from specimens in the ZSM collection,
and where this was not feasible from freshly collected and identified
specimens. This rapid progress reflects the strong involvement of
taxonomists throughout the process, which is one of our key missions.
We have implemented a system which co-ordinates vouchers stored
in our main collection, with tissues as well as DNA samples in our
DNA bank.
