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P L A N K T O N   B A R C O D E   A T L A S   &   D A T A B A S E
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MZGdb Background and Methods
    MetaZooGene is Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) working group focused on the continuing development of integrative molecular-morphological taxonomic analysis of marine zooplankton biodiversity through international communication, cooperation, and collaboration.

    The first Term of Reference for SCOR WG157 (aka "MetaZooGene") was to create an open-access web portal for DNA barcodes of marine zooplankton. This portal would include a Reference Database (containing a compilation of quality-checked, marine zooplankton COI barcodes) and a Barcode Atlas (summarizing available species COI barcoding coverage for all the major zooplankton taxonomic groups, reported by ocean or region).   These two components were joined together into a single online product called the MetaZooGene Barcode Atlas and Database, or MZGdb.   This combined resource summarizes the presence and barcoding status of major zooplankton groups and species, reported-by geographic regions, oceans, and seas (e.g., "North Atlantic pteropods", "Arctic calanoid copepods", "Southern Ocean euphausiids", "Mediterranean Sea decapods"), and allows a user to download data from any of these taxonomic/geographic subsets in a variety of formats.

     

    Through MZGdb, it is possible to see what species of zooplankton, fish, or marine mammals (e.g., copepods, sculpin, dolphins) are commonly found in a region (e.g., the North Atlantic or the Southern Ocean), and then see which of these species have publicly available COI barcodes (and which do not).   This capability can help direct new barcoding efforts on taxa groups and/or geographic regions with little or no coverage.

    This background and methods section will be expanded as the work of MetaZooGene continues.   For now, the best available summary of the MZGdb effort can be found in MetaZooGene's open-access review paper, which is available here:


    We intend to update the MZGdb on a monthly basis, adding/removing/correcting COI barcodes in the MZGdb database.   While the initial version of the MetaZooGene MZGdb atlas and database is focused on the COI gene, we are working on adding additional genes to the database in the near future (e.g., 16S, 18S, 12S, 28S).

    If you have questions or problems with the MZGdb database, please contact:   Todd.OBrien@noaa.gov