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Atlantic Canadian Marine Invertebrates
Over 500 species of benthic invertebrates were collected and barcoded as part of the Huntsman Marine Science Centre’s 2022-2026 DNA barcode project with the goal of growing the reference sequence library for Atlantic Canada. This work is part of large umbrella project, the International Barcode of Life project, which now includes barcode records for a little over half of a million species globally, accessible on the BOLD platform.
DNA barcoding is based on the premise that species can be identified by a section of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) gene, so that each species has a unique barcode that is separated from other species’ barcodes.
Benthic invertebrates including worms, molluscs, crustaceans, sponges, echinoderms, tunicates and others were collected from Northern Labrador to the outer Bay of Fundy and the coast of Nova Scotia by scuba diving, grab sampling subtidal sediment, and hand collecting specimens from the intertidal zone and from dock communities. We then morphologically identify specimens to the species level, take pictures, and remove a small piece of tissue for DNA barcoding. On BOLD, similar sequences, which represent provisional species, are grouped into BINs (e.g. BOLD:AAL7714). Different taxa are organized into projects on BOLD, all of which are accessible under the container project: Atlantic Canadian Marine Invertebrates (ATCMI)
To share and preserve this work, we have created species pages for 200 species that are commonly encountered in the Bay of Fundy. Each species page includes a link to the species barcode page (BIN), links to individual specimen pages, collection information, and distinguishing taxonomic features compiled from scientific literature.
Website content was written by Christina Carr, Julia Dupuis and Claire Goodwin, all Huntsman Marine Science Centre. Samples were identified by Huntsman Staff (Christina Carr, Julia Dupuis and Claire Goodwin) with input from Henry Choong, Royal BC Museum (Hydroids), Jo Porter, Heriot-Watt University (Bryozoans), Mary Spencer Jones and Andrea Waeschenbach, Natural History Museum London (Bryozoans), Tom Trott (various marine invertebrates), Bernard Picton, National Museums Northern Ireland (Nudibranchs); Barbara Neves, Vonda Wareham, Brooklin Caines, and Javier Murillo, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (Sponges, Corals). Claude Nozères, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (various marine invertebrates). Co-op students Sandra Jaskowiac and Siobhan Hourihan assisted with specimen documentation and tissue sampling. Staff from Explos-Nature assisted with fieldwork.
This project was supported by Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Centre for Biodiversity and Genomics at the University of Guelph. Additional support for fieldwork was provided by Students on Ice and the Innu Nation.
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