Amid spiralling government interest, world's top 350 DNA barcode scientists meet...(s from all over the world revealing 154 ...)

Though known to be essential for life on Earth, scientists say some 90-99% of fungi remain undocumented - a diversity that could be revealed through DNA barcoding. Potential projects include identifying airborne fungi, including mycotoxin producers, global trade-related fungi travelers, boreal forest fungi and medically important fungi.

A standardized library of barcodes will enable more people to identify species -- whether abundant or rare, native or invasive -- engendering appreciation of biodiversity locally and globally.

Researchers at the Taipei conference will show how barcoding can illuminate local and global biodiversity. Moorea, an island in French Polynesia, has become a laboratory where a French-U.S. collaboration is building a barcode library for all terrestrial and marine species. Sphingid moths are found around the world, and the first global barcode survey of the group will be presented in Taipei.

"The importance of this work to conservation is particularly critical to developing strategies to preserve highly different genetic entities or species -- to enable the species identification of eggs, larvae and tissues," noted conference chair Kwang-Tsao Shao, from the Academia Sinica.

"Asia is a region of high diversity but relatively poor documentation of that diversity," he added. "Barcoding is a perfect collaboration between molecular techniques and traditional taxonomy, and practical, cost-effective way to both study this under-explored region and protect its biodiversity. That's why Asians were proud to host this conference and eager to attend."

Questions and research to be aired by presenters at the conference also include
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