BUENOS AIRES, July 15 (Xinhua) -- Being part of a global effort to build a digital library with the DNA of the world's species, Argentina has made significant headway, a local museum director said on Friday.
The ambitious project, called the International Barcode of Life, or iBOL, has involved 26 countries and hopes to "gather DNA barcodes from five million specimens, representing at least 500,000 species," according to the initiative's website.
Pablo Tubaro is an ornithologist by training. He also heads the Argentina's Bernardino Rivadavia Museum of Natural Sciences in central Buenos Aires.
"Since 2004, the museum has been working on the international project, which aims to create reference libraries with the genetic sequences that will allow us to identify all of the species on the planet," he told Xinhua.
Members of the Latin American nation's National Council for Scientific and Technical Research are also taking part in the project.
In Latin America, countries such as "Argentina, Brazil and Mexico serve as regional nodes of the project, developing reference libraries for regional specimens and helping other countries in the region to do the same," said Tubaro.
"Among the so-called central nodes (of the project) are Canada, where the initiative began, the United States, European Union and China. These central countries are the ones with the most technological development and capacity for analysis," he added.
The project's website says the library will have wide-ranging applications in "pest and disease control, food production and safety, resource management, conservation, research, education and recreation."
