Barcoding Canada’s Arthropods

Jeremy deWaard is a scientist and Monica Young is a doctoral candidate, both at the University of Guelph. Joel Gibson is an insect expert at the Royal British Columbia Museum. During the voyage they will assemble a collection of coastal Aathropoda (insects, arachnids). Young is focusing on mites, an important part of soil biodiversity that are poorly known from the Arctic. These researchers are using DNA technologies that are analytically powerful and will increase our capacity to assess the diversity of life in key, mega-diverse areas like soil. This work will add to the significant genomic database of Canadian species being assembled by the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics. Collected specimens will be available from the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics and the Royal British Columbia Museum. Joel Gibson is the Entomology Curator at the Royal British Columbia Museum. During the voyage, he will assemble a collection of arthropoda (insects, spiders) from the coastline of British Columbia. Insects and spiders living on marine shorelines are little known, especially on the Pacific Ocean. These unique communities, reliant upon kelp, driftwood, barnacles, or intertidal pools, will be explored and documented in detail. Collected specimens will be available from the Royal British Columbia Museum.