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element-hidden"></span> <div class="content"> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>    <img typeof="foaf:Image" src="/sites/default/files/styles/medium/public/BioAlfa%20Logo%2012jun19%20_0.jpg?itok=l-_AJv4H" width="219" height="220" alt="" />     </p> <p><strong>BioAlfa</strong></p> <p>Costa Rica’s natural heritage is one-million-plus species of wild multicellular organisms. It is 4% of the world’s biodiversity. These species live everywhere in the country, but they are concentrated in the 25% that is natural forest and in unperturbed marine ecosystems. To incorporate and integrate these species and their ecosystems into Costa Rica’s socio-economic fabric, and therefore sustain them into perpetuity, we need to come to intensively know who they are, where they live, what they do, how to find them, and freely distribute this information to all society. The way to accomplish this is via DNA barcoding, or molecular analysis, so we can have precise identifications of every species in Costa Rica. These barcodes will be placed in an open-source, publicly available database. With this web-based biodiversity encyclopedia, a bioliterate society has diverse opportunities to non-damagingly use this enormous national resource and minimize its footprints on it. GDFCF supports and helps facilitate Costa Rica’s stated goal to become the first tropical country in the world to fully know its biodiversity via the ambitious BioAlfa project, which was formally launched by a <a href="http://www.elpais.cr/2019/06/11/costa-rica-declara-de-interes-nacional-alfabetizacion-biologica/">Presidential Decree</a> in June, 2019. A variety of articles, papers, and presentations have been produced that further elaborate on this bold vision to advance tropical biodiversity conservation in the 21st century.</p> <div class="caption"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="/sites/default/files/styles/standard_page_full_column/public/AlvaradoCMRsigndecree.jpg?itok=Q5ky8z5n" width="598" height="598" alt="" /><br> On June 11, 2019,  Costa Rica Environment Minister Carlos Manuel Rodríguez and President Carlos Alvarado signed the BioAlfa decree, confirming government support for this initiative.</div> <h4><strong>Resources and Background Information</strong></h4> <ul> <li>Formal <a href="https://www.acguanacaste.ac.cr/bioalfa">ACG government website</a> on BioAlfa, with several background papers in Spanish and English</li> <li><em>Bold Project Hopes to DNA Barcode Every Species in Costa Rica</em>, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/04/bold-project-hopes-to-dna-barcode-every-species-in-costa-rica/">Mongabay</a>, April 27, 2020</li> <li><a href="https://ibol.org/press-release/catalogue-life-in-costa-rica/">Center for Biodiversity Genomics</a> Awarded $4 Million to Catalogue Life in Costa Rica, January 15, 2020</li> <li><em>How a Tropical Country Can DNA Barcode Itself</em>, <a href="https://ibol.org/barcodebulletin/features/how-a-tropical-country-can-dna-barcode-itself/">iBOL Barcode Bulletin</a>, October 2, 2019</li> <li><em>Planting the Seeds for a Bioliterate Tropical Country</em>, <a href="https://norwegianscitechnews.com/2019/06/planting-the-seeds-for-a-bioliterate-tropical-country/">Norwegian SciTech News</a>, June 14, 2019</li> <li><em>Political Will, Technical Feasibility, & Their Combination for the Survival of Wild Tropical Biodiversity</em>, Dan Janzen presentation to the <a href="https://dnabarcodes2017.org/dan-janzen/">7th International iBOL Conferenc</a>e, South Africa, 2017<br>  </li> </ul> <p><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="/sites/default/files/styles/standard_page_full_column/public/HazelBioLep.jpg?itok=V2jMoWUE" width="610" height="442" alt="" /></p> <div class="caption">Parataxonomist Hazel Cambronero photographing a moth as part of the database inventorying and curation of each species that comes through the central BioLep laboratory before being pinned and hand carried to a formal collection inside or outside of Costa Rica.</div> <p><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="/sites/default/files/styles/standard_page_full_column/public/MuchosMoths.jpg?itok=Re5igBEm" width="610" height="458" alt="" /></p> <div class="caption">A group of <em>Rothschildia erycina</em> moths (the official ACG logo moth) ready for eventual storage at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.</div> <div class="caption"><br>                                                <img typeof="foaf:Image" src="/sites/default/files/styles/medium/public/Original%20con%20Letra%20Blanca%20sin%20Costa%20Rica%20AC.jpg?itok=rxcINgu8" width="219" height="220" alt="" /></div> <h3>How Exactly Does DNA Barcoding Work?</h3> <p>We'd like to give you a visual tour of what happens with species discovery in ACG.</p> <div class="caption"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="/sites/default/files/styles/standard_page_full_column/public/Hazel%20Cambronero%20and%20Sergio%20Salas%20pts%20collecting%20moths%20for%20BioLep%20and%20DNA%20barcoding%20copy.jpg?itok=4oLMXiJT" width="610" height="457" alt="" /><br> 1. Parataxonomists Hazel Cambronero and Sergio Rios collect specimens in the forest, not knowing what every one is but generally leaving behind those that they feel they already understand.</div> <p class="gdf-paragraph">The ACG focus, which GDFCF supports in full force, is on finding all species of moths and butterflies (Lepidoptera), their parasites, and their food plants, for all of its terrestrial 1,200 km2.  The Lepidoptera may be winged adults, as above at a car battery-powered light trap, or wild caterpillars from the plants they are feeding on in the forest, to be reared in captivity to see what species they are.  This means find it, know who it is, know where it lives and what it eats, and <a href="http://www.barcodinglife.org/">document all that on the web</a>. Roughly 11,500 species of moths and butterflies have been found out of an estimated 15,000 species, across the three forest ecosystems of ACG, along with 3,500+ species of parasites and 2,500+ species of food plants.</p> <div class="caption"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="/sites/default/files/styles/standard_page_full_column/public/pictures/DNA_Barcoding/Harry%3AFreddy%3ACacao.04%20610%202nov02.jpg?itok=dA4Xg9CD" width="610" height="458" alt="" /><br> 2. The wild-caught caterpillars are reared in bags with their food plants in rearing barns at 11 GDFCF-ACG research stations throughout the three major ACG ecosystems – rain forest, dry forest, cloud forest. </div> <p class="gdf-paragraph">All documentation, including entering data into the database, identifying and if necessary saving a specimen of the food plant as a voucher, and photographs of the caterpillars, is done on-site by the parataxonomists – as you see here by Freddy Quesada and Harry Ramirez. What emerges from the pupae in the rearing bags is a moth or butterfly, or a parasitic fly or wasp that burrowed into the caterpillar before it was captured.</p> <div class="caption"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="/sites/default/files/styles/standard_page_full_column/public/pictures/DNA_Barcoding/Spreading%20board%20610.jpg?itok=gzkz4yj9" width="610" height="238" alt="" /><br> <img typeof="foaf:Image" src="/sites/default/files/styles/standard_page_full_column/public/pictures/DNA_Barcoding/Ruth%20Franco%20and%20Sergio%20Rios%20BioLep%20spreading%20moths%20for%20DNA%20barcoding06-29-09.JPG?itok=alfnzim6" width="610" height="407" alt="" /><br> 3. The newly light-trapped, or the newly emergent moths, butterflies and parasitoids are screened, photographed, and sometimes museum-prepared by their parataxonomists – as you see here – Ruth Franco and Sergio Ríos.</div> <p class="gdf-paragraph">The initial identifications of caterpillars or winged adults are bestowed in the field, and then are checked against the existing inventory database. The parataxonomists' decades of inventory has made them local experts on many kinds of species of Lepidoptera, parasites and food plants. But they, like many others in the world of formal academic taxonomy, have long been fooled by the look-alikes. DNA barcoding has revealed to them a whole new layer of biodiversity hiding under what we thought we knew, as well as allowing accurate identification among thousands of species that can be distinguished by eye, but hide among the sheer numbers (see figure 4 below).</p> <div class="caption"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="/sites/default/files/styles/standard_page_full_column/public/pictures/DNA_Barcoding/leg%20off%20BioLep%209aug07%20610.jpg?itok=o2rWggUX" width="610" height="407" alt="" /><br> 4. During this process, Sergio Ríos takes one leg to be DNA barcoded.</div> <p class="gdf-paragraph">ACG has generated the largest collection of 5-legged insects in the world. The leg collected from the moths goes into a robot-friendly lysis plate with 94 companions, and is couriered to the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario at the University of Guelph for DNA extraction, sequencing, and the DNA barcode – a tiny snippet of DNA – is recorded into the <a href="http://www.barcodinglife.org/">BOLD</a> public database.</p> <div class="caption"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="/sites/default/files/styles/standard_page_full_column/public/pictures/DNA_Barcoding/shingled%20leps%20AASR%20610%2012sep07.jpg?itok=3MMcpP8_" width="610" height="407" alt="" /><br> <img typeof="foaf:Image" src="/sites/default/files/styles/standard_page_full_column/public/pictures/DNA_Barcoding/Ruth%20Franco%20explaining%20DNA%20barcoding%20to%20the%20Chinese%20government.jpg?itok=gNz0jYMW" width="610" height="457" alt="" /><br> 5. A BioLep parataxonomist, Ruth Franco, explains the entire process to visitors from the Universidad de Costa Rica, and from China.</div> <p class="gdf-paragraph">Once field-identified and field-databased, the samples are held in freezers at the research stations and then transferred to the ACG-GDFCF BioLep laboratory in the Estación Biológica Santa Rosa in ACG’s Sector Santa Rosa. Here the specimens are further processed, labeled, and a decision made as to whether to destructively/sample/destroy, or DNA barcode and deposit in Costa Rica's Museo Nacional, the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., USA, the Canadian National Collection in Ottawa, Canada, or elsewhere among the world’s scientific repositories.</p> <div class="caption"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="/sites/default/files/styles/standard_page_full_column/public/pictures/DNA_Barcoding/Apanteles%20610.jpg?itok=4ychJfG4" width="610" height="220" alt="" /><br> 6. Two newly discovered species of parasitic wasps, each is about 2 mm long and discovered by its DNA barcode.</div> <p class="gdf-paragraph">The DNA barcode is the only really certain way to distinguish this pair of wasps from each other and from the hundreds of other newly described species of nearly identical ACG wasps. Reared from an elevational pair of nearly identical butterfly caterpillars, <em>Apanteles ruthfrancoae</em> (left) lives on the lower slopes of Volcan Cacao in the center of ACG, and <em>Apanteles duniagarciae</em> (right) lives slightly higher on the same volcano. Both bear the names of the parataxonomists that work with them.</p> <div class="caption"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="/sites/default/files/styles/standard_page_full_column/public/pictures/DNA_Barcoding/actual%20fly%20barcode.jpg?itok=htl34MR6" width="610" height="458" alt="" /><br> 7. A DNA barcode is generated for a particular specimen and it looks like this (above).</div> <p>The newly generated barcode is added to the growing "Libary of Life" barcoding public database, BOLD, at the International Barcode of Life (<a href="https://ibol.org/">iBOL</a>), established to catalog planetary biodiversity. As of 2020, the set of barcodes generated by more than 1,485,000 ACG specimens (47,752 species) found and documented by the GDFCF/ACG parataxonomists is the largest tropical dataset among the more than eleven million barcode records in BOLD that contain 686,000 species. From Costa Rica overall, there are 57,000 species in BOLD (1,605,000 records). And for that species of fly we now have its license plate and can then connect any member of that species to any other information that humanity has about any other barcoded member of that species, IF you can read its barcode. We eagerly await the day when we all have in our back pocket something the cost and size of a plastic comb that will make the WiFi connection from anywhere, any time, by any one. This will be crowdsourcing of biodiversity by 7 billion-plus people.</p> <p>By teaming with iBOL, the ACG-GDFCF team of 38 parataxonomists and their several dozen international collaborating taxonomists has mainstreamed the use of DNA barcoding to ensure precise identification and discovery of the literally tens of thousands of species being found by the parataxonomists in the ACG forests – as many as occur in North America, packed into an area the size of Philadelphia and its suburbs. Combining their 365/31/7 inventory intensity with the speed and accuracy of DNA barcoding, and integrating with classical taxonomy, literally opens tropical nature’s book of life: from pinpointing ecological relationships, accurating identifying biocontrol agents and sources of new chemicals and medicines, to identifying climate adaptation responses and conflicts, to fine-tuning resource management techniques, and perhaps most important of all, to allowing all of us the mental stimulation of the variety of life. Bioliteracy builds with knowledge, and this is especially for residents who become experts on their natural heritage and advocates for its survival. Years of practice have proven the effectiveness of this model. The task remains large in ACG even while this approach needs to be mainstreamed to the rest of the tropics. The growing use of DNA barcoding technology as a standard and personal taxonomic tool has proven that we can know the world’s biodiversity and we can share this knowledge with the entire world in a cost-effective way. The inventors will give us the backpocket barcorder, and global WiFi will give us billions of crowdsourcings to fill the library of life.</p> <p>                                                                       <img typeof="foaf:Image" src="/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/Original%20con%20Letra%20Blanca%20sin%20Costa%20Rica%20AC.jpg?itok=8KFLy8Gx" width="99" height="100" alt="" /></p> </div></div></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="column column-second column-alpha clearfix"> <div class="panel-pane pane-menu-tree pane-main-menu second-level-menu" > <h2 class="pane-title"> What We Support </h2> <div class="pane-content"> <div class="menu-block-wrapper menu-block-ctools-main-menu-1 menu-name-main-menu parent-mlid-main-menu-0 menu-level-2"> <ul class="menu"><li class="first expanded menu-mlid-743 menu-965"><a href="/bioinventory-building-library-life">Bioinventory of ACG</a><ul class="menu"><li class="first leaf menu-mlid-1685 menu-965"><a href="/terrestrial-parataxonomy">Terrestrial Parataxonomy</a></li> <li class="last leaf menu-mlid-1686 menu-965"><a href="/marine-parataxonomy">Marine Parataxonomy</a></li> </ul></li> <li class="expanded menu-mlid-744 menu-965"><a href="/education-biodevelopment">Education for Biodevelopment</a><ul class="menu"><li class="first leaf menu-mlid-753 menu-965"><a href="/biological-education-peb">Biological Education (PEB)</a></li> <li class="last leaf menu-mlid-754 menu-965"><a href="/marine-bioawareness">Marine Bioawareness</a></li> </ul></li> <li class="expanded menu-mlid-745 menu-965"><a href="/habitat-restoration">Habitat Restoration</a><ul class="menu"><li class="first leaf menu-mlid-751 menu-965"><a href="/expanding-acg" title="Short history of growth from 3 national parks to the present ACG.">Expanding ACG</a> <span class="description">Short history of growth from 3 national parks to the present ACG.</span></li> <li class="last leaf menu-mlid-752 menu-965"><a href="/land-management">Land Management</a></li> </ul></li> <li class="leaf active-trail active menu-mlid-1677 menu-965"><a href="/bioalfa-bioliteracy-costa-rica" class="active-trail active">BioAlfa: Bioliteracy for Costa Rica</a></li> <li class="last expanded menu-mlid-1200 menu-965"><a href="/assisting-acg-biomanagement">Assisting ACG Biomanagement</a><ul class="menu"><li class="first leaf menu-mlid-1687 menu-965"><a href="/sea-turtle-and-jaguar-research">Sea Turtle and Jaguar Research</a></li> <li class="last leaf menu-mlid-1762 menu-965"><a href="/bird-research">Bird Research</a></li> </ul></li> </ul></div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="column column-main column-beta clearfix"> <div class="panel-pane pane-block pane-gdfcf-footer-gdfcf-footer" > <div class="pane-content"> <div id="gdfcf-bottom-footer"><div id="block-footer-sitemap-footer-sitemap" class="block block-footer-sitemap"> <h2>Site map</h2> <div class="content"> <div id="footer-sitemap" class="clearfix"> <div class="fs-block-content"><div class="main-menu"><ul class="footer_links_main-menu total-items-7 parent-items-0 single-items-0"><li class="menu-962 depth-1 total-children-4 parent-children-2 single-children-2 first"><a href="/content/who-we-are" class="fs-root-link">Who We Are</a><ul class="footer_links_main-menu total-items-4 parent-items-0 single-items-0"><li class="menu-739 depth-1 total-children-13 parent-children-0 single-children-13 first"><a href="/team">Team</a><ul class="footer_links_main-menu total-items-13 parent-items-0 single-items-0"><li class="menu-1060 depth-1 fs-no-children first"><a href="/daniel-janzen">Daniel Janzen</a></li> <li class="menu-1061 depth-1 fs-no-children"><a href="/winnie-hallwachs">Winnie Hallwachs</a></li> <li class="menu-1063 depth-1 fs-no-children"><a href="/sigifredo-marin">Sigifredo Marín</a></li> <li class="menu-1064 depth-1 fs-no-children"><a href="/luz-mar%C3%ADa-romero-villalta">Luz María Romero Villalta</a></li> <li class="menu-1563 depth-1 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Green</a></li> <li class="menu-1628 depth-1 fs-no-children"><a href="/robert-puschendorf-phd" title="Robert Puschendorf">Robert Puschendorf</a></li> <li class="menu-1723 depth-1 fs-no-children"><a href="/b%C3%A9ryl-lacoste-hamilton">Béryl Lacoste Hamilton</a></li> <li class="menu-1753 depth-1 fs-no-children last"><a href="/terri-mccarthy">Terri McCarthy</a></li> </ul></li> <li class="menu-760 depth-1 fs-no-children"><a href="/our-supporters">Our Supporters</a></li> <li class="menu-1261 depth-1 fs-no-children last"><a href="/financial-information">Financial Information</a></li> </ul></li> <li class="menu-964 depth-1 total-children-2 parent-children-2 single-children-0"><a href="/content/where-we-work" class="fs-root-link">Where We Work</a><ul class="footer_links_main-menu total-items-2 parent-items-0 single-items-0"><li class="menu-740 depth-1 total-children-4 parent-children-0 single-children-4 first"><a href="/biodiversity-major-ecosystems-acg" title="Four major ecosystems of ACG">Major Ecosystems of ACG</a><ul class="footer_links_main-menu total-items-4 parent-items-0 single-items-0"><li class="menu-1205 depth-1 fs-no-children first"><a href="/marine">Marine</a></li> <li class="menu-1203 depth-1 fs-no-children"><a href="/dry-forest">Dry Forest</a></li> <li class="menu-1204 depth-1 fs-no-children"><a href="/rain-forest">Rain forest</a></li> <li class="menu-1206 depth-1 fs-no-children last"><a href="/cloud-forest">Cloud Forest</a></li> </ul></li> <li class="menu-1198 depth-1 total-children-3 parent-children-1 single-children-2 last"><a href="/biodiversity-species-and-human-dimensions" title="">Species and Human Dimensions</a><ul class="footer_links_main-menu total-items-3 parent-items-0 single-items-0"><li class="menu-1682 depth-1 fs-no-children first"><a href="/species">Species</a></li> <li class="menu-1683 depth-1 fs-no-children"><a href="/human-dimensions">Human Dimensions</a></li> <li class="menu-1684 depth-1 total-children-0 parent-children-0 single-children-0 last"><a href="/complex-natural-history-stories-0">Complex Natural History: Stories</a></li> </ul></li> </ul></li> <li class="menu-965 active-trail depth-1 total-children-5 parent-children-4 single-children-1"><a href="/content/what-we-support" class="fs-root-link">What We Support</a><ul class="footer_links_main-menu total-items-5 parent-items-0 single-items-0"><li class="menu-743 depth-1 total-children-2 parent-children-0 single-children-2 first"><a href="/bioinventory-building-library-life">Bioinventory of ACG</a><ul class="footer_links_main-menu total-items-2 parent-items-0 single-items-0"><li class="menu-1685 depth-1 fs-no-children first"><a href="/terrestrial-parataxonomy">Terrestrial Parataxonomy</a></li> <li class="menu-1686 depth-1 fs-no-children last"><a href="/marine-parataxonomy">Marine Parataxonomy</a></li> </ul></li> <li class="menu-744 depth-1 total-children-2 parent-children-0 single-children-2"><a href="/education-biodevelopment">Education for 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<li class="menu-1789 depth-1 fs-no-children"><a href="/content/seasons-greetings-and-latest-newsletter">Season's Greetings and Latest Newsletter</a></li> <li class="menu-1788 depth-1 fs-no-children"><a href="/content/announcing-new-gdfcf-executive-director">Announcing New GDFCF Executive Director!</a></li> <li class="menu-1787 depth-1 fs-no-children"><a href="/content/insect-decline-may-be-cause-population-drop-neotropical-birds">Insect Decline May Be Cause for Population Drop in Neotropical Birds</a></li> <li class="menu-1785 depth-1 fs-no-children last"><a href="/content/studying-small-stuff-2nd-biomar-mini-symposium">Studying the Small Stuff: 2nd BioMar Mini Symposium</a></li> </ul></li> <li class="menu-1681 depth-1 total-children-8 parent-children-1 single-children-7 last"><a href="/resources" title="" class="fs-root-link">Resources</a><ul class="footer_links_main-menu total-items-8 parent-items-0 single-items-0"><li class="menu-1012 depth-1 fs-no-children first"><a 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