California Institute for Biodiversity eDNA project plate 2

The California Institute for Biodiversity is facilitating metabarcoding of California samples to create the data needed for mapping and predicting species occurrences so that species can be collected, digitized, and sequenced. This work is to expand efforts to support biodiversity surveys of invertebrates and fungi from museum collections and modern environmental samples. We will study, and make data publicly available, for >1200 samples being sent from late 2023 through 2024 from CIB collaborators. Metabarcoding data will be used to identify taxonomic groups in the samples. Roughly 1000 of these 1200 new environmental samples will be soil and leaf litter. They are being collected in 5mL tubes from surface and at depth, usually 10cm. They are kept cool and shipped to CALeDNA headquarters at UCSC where they will be put in long term -80 degree C freezer archives. The geographic focus is from all over California, filling out undersampled habitats from California compared to CALeDNA existing collections with available data.