The scientific strategy of iBioGen included a comprehensive set of coordination, training, networking and dissemination actions. The work performed during the project duration and the main outputs are summarised below:
- Five annual meetings of the iBioGen consortium, which set the framework for an efficient coordination among partners.
- Three training visits of UCY PhD students and postdocs at NHM on transcriptomics, metagenomics and statistical analyses for ecology and evolution.
- Two international workshops on metabarcoding data analysis. A web resource for self-training in ‘Bioinformatic methods for Biodiversity Metabarcoding’ has been created and it is freely available.
- Five staff exchanges among the partners, with the aim to enhance methodological unification, protocol standardisation, knowledge transfer and collaborative research.
- An international symposium on “Next Generation Biodiversity Monitoring”, which generated an opinion paper that put forward a framework for an effective terrestrial Genomic Observatories network for global biodiversity integration and synthesis.
- An international symposium on “Synthesizing island biodiversity theory for community-wide genetic data” within the context of the International Conference “Island Biology 2019” in La Réunion, which generated a review manuscript on ecological, population genetic, and macroevolutionary models that can be extended to incorporate community-scale genetic variation.
- An international working group entitled “Toward harmonisation for the generation of metabarcoding data: Soil Biodiversity and Terrestrial Arthropod modules”, which generated a manuscript and a video presenting the harmonised protocols.
- An international working group entitled “Collective and harmonised HTS approaches to inventory arthropod on islands: laying the foundations of an Island Genomic Observatories network”, which generated a manuscript that sets the framework for an island Genomics Observatories network.
- An international working group on ecological-evolutionary synthesis, which generated the iBioGen R package: a suite of tools for studying ecological, evolutionary, and multi-scale processes within island communities.
- A systematic review of the COI metabarcoding literature which includes a set of recommendations to improve bioinformatic harmonisation.
- Three research manuscripts using data from the soil arthropod communities of the Cyprus forests and applying a range of analytical approaches, which are expected to promote Cyprus as a model system for biodiversity research.
- A piece of software that identifies putative NUMTs and other erroneous sequences in metabarcoding data.
- A TED-Ed lesson teaching the idea, methodology and applications of DNA metabarcoding to younger generations.
- A professional video demonstrating how the UCY researchers work in the field and in the lab to discover hidden biodiversity using DNA and highlighting the uniqueness of Cyprus’ biodiversity.
- Four educational programs and a permanent exhibit were designed and implemented in the Environmental Education Centres in Cyprus, which teach different aspects of the iBioGen project that were considered relevant and suitable for primary and secondary school kids.
- Further dissemination and outreach through the project brochure, the iBioGen website and social media pages and press releases.
- Two seminars and eight meetings with local stakeholders were held in Cyprus, which set the basis for exploitation of results beyond the end of the project.
