European participation in global biodiversity genomics endeavours aimed at identifying all biodiversity on Earth

DNA-based identification systems can track biodiversity change on large geographic scales and reveal the interactions among the species in a biome. On the other hand, fully sequencing life, including, when relevant, information on symbiotic organisms, microbiomes and parasites, is expected to provide new tools for the conservation, preservation and regeneration of biodiversity, drug discovery and advanced biotechnology.

The International Barcode of Life (iBOL) consortium has set up high-throughput barcoding infrastructure to barcode all biodiversity on Earth by 2045 with the help of the international community and several new infrastructures across the world. Several EU and associated countries currently participate in the barcoding endeavour, but there is no pan-European node of iBOL as such.

Similarly, the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP), initiated in 2018, aims to sequence and catalogue the genomes of all of Earth's currently described eukaryotic species over a