The symposium Biodiversity and DNA Barcoding was held at the Scandic Nidelven hotel 11-12 November 2015. Nearly 100 participants from Norway, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Germany, Czech Republic and UK had found their way to Trondheim, making this meeting larger than originally expected. The conference turned out to be a good meeting place for nature managers, barcoders, participants in the Norwegian Taxonomy Initiative and others interested in biodiversity and DNA barcoding.

As the program can confirm, there was a great diversity in the talks, both on topics and organism groups. We were guided through taxonomic challenges in fungi, marine invertebrates and insects, many of which has been detected with the aid of DNA barcodes. We were invited on journeys into the deep oceans and into the “moss forest”, and introduced to the opportunities molecular methods give when studying food webs, pollination and microscopic organisms.  We also learned about the The Planetary Biodiversity Mission, news from BOLD4 and about LifeScanner, a citizen-science initiative where identification of species through DNA barcoding is made available to everyone.

Speakers at the symposium. From left: Anders Hobæk, Christiane Todt, Marie Davey, Hans Tore Rapp, Frode Ødegaard, Inger Greve Alsos, Natasha de Vere, Endre Willassen, Kristian Hassel, Sujeevan Ratnasingham, Elisabeth Stur, Christer Erséus, Paul Hebert, Tomas Roslin. Tor Erik Brandrud and Gunn Paulsen were unavailable when the photo was taken. Photo Åge Hojem, NTNU University Museum, CC-BY.

Both organizers and participants seemed very pleased with the conference. Most things went as planned, the food was good, and even if we had music from the neighbouring room accompanying the last presentations on day two, the participants seemed pleased when leaving the venue. Thank you all for coming! More photos are available on Flickr.

Participants at the symposium Biodiversity and DNA barcoding 2015. Photo Åge Hojem, NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet, CC-BY.

Torbjørn Ekrem, NTNU University Museum