sequencing all species

I reported about the Earth BioGenome Project, which aims to obtain genome sequences for all eukaryotic species known to science, when it launched back in 2018. Since then, continuing progress in technology has enabled the project to keep on its somewhat ambitious course, so it now is approaching the finish of phase I (out of three) and beginning to make detailed plans for phase II. Which means it's a good time for a new feature about the project. The focus of attention this time lies on the fact that much of the biodiversity yet to be sequenced resides in the countries of the Global South, so the project needs to build capacity where the species are found.

My feature is out now:

All eukaryotes great and small

Current Biology Volume 35, Issue 20, 20 October 2025, Pages R937-R939

Restricted access to full text and PDF download
(contact me if you would like a PDF)

See also my Mastodon thread where I highlighted all CB features of 2025.

The thread for 2024 is here .

The African BioGenome Project aims to contribute genome sequences for more than 100,000 species. (Photo: Antonius Smal/Unsplash.)

brief history of conservation

This week's issue of Current Biology is a biodiversity special issue, see cover below, and I was asked to cover the history of biodiversity conservation. I haven't read anybody else's history of this field, so my selection of highlights may be eclectic, but it struck me as an enlightening thread that the introduction of agriculture was all about reducing biodiversity in our habitat, and that it took humans a long time to realise that biodiversity is actually good for us too. Hence the title:

Learning to value biodiversity

Current Biology Volume 31, Issue 19, 11 October 2021, Pages R1146-R1148

FREE access to full text and PDF download

See also my twitter thread listing all the 2021 features in Current Biology as they move to the open archives.

Cover of issue 19.
Table of contents.

sequence everything

It's three decades since the Human Genome Project was organised and 15 years since it published the draft sequence, so it may be worth asking what could be the next big thing for biology.

One possibility that is being looked at is to sequence the genomes of every single eukaryotic species known to science. The Earth BioGenome project, which promotes this idea, has calculated that this could be done within 10 years and would cost no more than the first human genome did.

A crazy idea? Find out in my latest feature which is out now:

The genome sequence of everything

Current Biology
Volume 28, Issue 13, 9 July 2018, Pages R719-R721

FREE access to full text and PDF download




Beetles account for a substantial part of eukaryotic diversity and will keep genome sequencers busy for a while. (Photo: Tim Sackton/Flickr.)

forest family

In contrast to what some reforestation programmes and commercial forestry seem to think, forests aren't just collections of identical trees, they are complex ecosystems with characteristic diversity in plant species as well as in everything else. Big data now enables researchers to analyse that complexity in detail on a global scale and work out how forests successfully spread around the world in relatively short time (less than 1/10 of the age of the Earth) and how humanity is reversing that spread in an even shorter time.

Read all about it in my latest feature, which is out now:


The rise and fall of global forests

Current Biology Volume 28, Issue 6, 19 March 2018, Pages R245–R248


FREE access to full text and PDF download



As I used the ginkgo as an example of a tree that lost its ecological context, this was a good excuse to use one of my own photos - taken at the top end of John Garne Way, Oxford Brookes University.

rio plus 20

In two weeks time, Rio de Janeiro will host another "Earth Summit" commemorating the 20th anniversary of the original one, where many of the environmental problems which we're still worried about were on the agenda. Mainly, the original Earth Summit led to a whole flood of further meetings and multilateral agreements, but there has been only very limited success in terms of making our use of natural resources more sustainable.

Rio+20 is a good point to take stock and check what has and what hasn't worked, and how to design and implement measures that will work and save our planet from our own activities.

I've written a feature about all this, which is out today in Current Biology and freely accessible to all (NB: my features remain on free access only until the next issue appears, i.e. normally 2 weeks, sometimes 3, and they return to free access a year after publication) ).

Will Rio+20 find a way to more sustainable development?
Current Biology, Volume 22, Issue 11, R425-R428, 5 June 2012
doi:10.1016/j.cub.2012.05.028

HTML text

pdf file

Photo: Denise Mayumi via Wikipedia

PS come to think of it, isn't it scary how all those celebrations from jubilee beacons to the olympic torch tend to take the shape of pointlessly combusting additional fossil fuels on top of the already unsustainable level that we're burning for energy and transport?

barcoding biodiversity

DNA barcodes are specific DNA sequences that can be used for convenient species identification. There are now huge projects underway to compile databases of barcodes for many thousands of species, linking in traditional museum collections, but also changing the way ecological field research is done and species protection can be policed. This is a topic I hadn't covered before, so there was a lot to catch up with in this feature, which is out in Current Biology today and freely accessible to all:

Barcoding biodiversity
Current Biology, Volume 22, Issue 3, R73-R76, 7 February 2012
doi:10.1016/j.cub.2012.01.036
HTML text
PDF file



Yes, Nemo has been barcoded too! (Photo: Fourth International Barcode of Life Conference, Adelaide, Australia, Nov-Dec.2011)

sticky stuff

Earlier this year, I reviewed a book about biological adhesives and was intrigued by the large diversity of interesting materials that haven't been investigaten in much detail yet. I've further explored this field in a feature article which is out in this month's issue of Chemistry World:

Getting stuck in
Chemistry World 8, no. 12, pp 52-55

restricted access

Galápagos Islands less threatened?

We're still in the year of biodiversity, and the Unesco decision to remove the iconic Galápagos Islands from the "red list" of threatened World Heritage sites has drawn mixed reactions. The government of Ecuador, which saw itself put in the "naughty corner" by the red-listing, welcomed the move which acknowledged its improved efforts. Environmental organisations have, however, claimed that the change was premature and a lot remained to be done.

My news feature on this debate is out in today's issue of Current Biology:

Fears over new Galápagos status
Current Biology, Volume 20, Issue 16, R656-R657, 24 August 2010
doi:10.1016/j.cub.2010.08.004

Summary and restricted access to pdf file

biodiversity in focus

Today's issue of Current Biology has a special news focus on biodiversity, which includes an exceptional three contributions from me:

Tiger in the bank R495
Michael Gross
(re. the debate whether tiger conservation efforts are failing)
summary and restricted access to pdf file

Missed targets R496
Michael Gross, Nigel Williams
(re. the UN's recent biodiversity report)
summary and restricted access to pdf file

Forest alliance R497
Michael Gross
(re. rainforest research and conservation in Borneo)
summary and restricted access to pdf file



Borneo - photo by Jen Alger

(short URL for this post: http://bit.ly/aNM9sC)

bumblebee biodiversity in the backyard

I've written quite a few pieces about colony losses in honey bees (Apis mellifera), but have to admit I didn't really know who's doing all the pollinating work in my own small garden. This weekend, after noticing one of the trees being visited by lots of insects, I took my camera and had a closer look. I think I have spotted four different species (not counting flies). All identifications below are tentative, so any helpful hints appreciated:


I think this could be a Bombus terrestris, or buff-tailed bumblebee ?


Love the orange neck-scarf on this one, think it might be Bombus hypnorum, which apparently only arrived in the UK in 2001 (according to Bumblebee Conservation Trust)?



Don't recall seeing its rear end, but if it's reddish, it might be a red-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius) ? I've definitely seen one of those elsewhere in Oxford.


I think this one is an ordinary European honey bee Apis mellifera - we may be in reach of the colony housed in the Oxford University Museum.