Tag Archives: barcoding

The Changing Face of Ecology: Part 1

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Ecology is a discipline that is constantly evolving. I spoke to (pictured from left to right) Madhur Anand, Andrew Hendry and Paul Hebert, as well as Mark Davis, Amy Austin and Bill Sutherland about the biggest changes they’ve seen in their careers (Image Credits: Karen Whylie, Guelph University, Andrew Hendry; CC BY-SA 2.0)

With so much of ecology focused on how the world around us is changing, it should come as no surprise that the discipline itself has undergone considerable transformation since its inception. And as with the world around us, many facets of ecology which are now commonplace were once a thing of the past.

Over the last 10 months, my colleague Kate Layton-Matthews and I have had the fortune to speak with a number of influential researchers in ecology, and there’s one question that we’ve always asked them: how has ecology changed over the course of your career? Here are some of their responses.

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Paul Hebert: The Inventory of Life

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I spoke to Professor Paul Hebert, the "grandfather of DNA barcoding", on his attempt to classify all muticellular life

Image Credit: Paul Hebert, University of Guelph, CC BY-SA 2.0, Image Cropped

Humans have always tried to categorise the world around us. From our early interpretation of the four elements to Linnaeus’ revolutionary system in the 1700s, we’ve always sought to understand better the life that we share the planet with. On my visit to the University of Guelph this year, I was able to sit down with a scientist who is attempting to classify all multi-cellular life.

Professor Paul Hebert is Scientific Director of the International Barcode of Life project, a consortium whose goal it is to document all life on our planet. I spoke with the man nicknamed the “father of DNA barcoding” about the magic that has revolutionised biodiversity science in the last 50 years, and how it’s being used today.

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