DR. KEN CAMERON: So I think we should probably collect this buttercup.

DNA bar coding is a term that is being applied to an exciting technique for identifying plants using genetic information. Biologists like myself have been sequencing dozens of different genes for different plant groups for more than ten years but we’re now working on standardizing which gene will be used universally around the world for creating an encyclopedia of life; our universal DNA barcode library. And for that reason, I’ve launched a pilot project exploring the use of DNA bar coding for plant species identification. The reason that we call these DNA barcodes is that we’re trying to make the comparison or the analogy to a product barcode you would find on any product in the supermarket shelf. Obviously they’re not black lines on a white background but they are varying patterns that can distinguish one species from another. In order to collect plant material for this DNA bar coding project, my colleagues from the botanical garden and I are going out into the forest each week. The team consists of myself representing the laboratory science, a member of our horticulture staff; Jessica Arcate, Dr. Michael Nee from the herbarium and one of our graduate students, Donald who represents the next generation of scientists and students who work here in the garden. Specifically, this pilot project targets the native and naturalized plants within the 50 acre forest located within the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. This is a really interesting forest because in fact, it has never been cleared for agriculture. To date, we estimate that approximately 340 different plant species that are either native or have escaped out of cultivation, and those are the targets of our pilot project. Every living thing on earth is built up of cells and the DNA within those cells is made up of the same building blocks, regardless of whether it’s plant, fungus or animal. In fact, there are four building blocks that make up DNA, we call these four nucelotides and they have long scientific names, but we abbreviate them by letters. There’s an A, a G, a C and a T. You can think of these as beads on a string. A’s, G’s, C’s, and T’s that are strung together in different patterns. And the repeating patterns of these four building blocks, these nucleotides is what makes one gene different from another gene.

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