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A new tool helps researchers track Australia's genomic biodiversity

A world-first tool is tracking Australia's progress in sequencing the full genomes—or genetic blueprints—of the country's 250,000-plus known and catalogued species.

Launched today, reveals that only 2% of Australia's known and catalogued species have had their genome sequenced at least once.

The online dashboard is part of the Australian Reference Genome Atlas (ARGA), a platform delivered through the Atlas of Living Australia, Bioplatforms Australia, Australian BioCommons and the Australian Research Data Commons.

CSIRO's Dr. Kathryn Hall, ARGA project lead, said Genome Tracker is a step change in how genomic data coverage can be tracked, assessed and prioritized.

"Whole-genome sequencing for plants and animals provides insights into ecology, conservation biology, agriculture and biosecurity," Dr. Hall said. "It lets us peer back through evolutionary time to understand how species have adapted to the unique landscapes of Australia. Genome Tracker clearly shows which parts of the family tree of life have strong representation and which are under-sequenced or entirely missing.

"It helps researchers map existing genomic coverage and highlights under-represented areas for research."

The ultimate goal is to have genomes published for a wide cross-section of Australian biodiversity.

"Genomes help us understand the adaptive traits of species—how they've uniquely adapted to their environment and how they're evolving," Dr. Hall said. "The higher branches in the taxonomic tree of life represent older genomic divergence."

Genome Tracker tells us that these ancient branches currently have just 32% genomic coverage. Improving their representation will deepen our understanding of how species have diversified and evolved over time.

"These are exciting times for biology. Genomes give us roadmaps to trace how life came to be as it is today—and how we can work with that knowledge to protect it for generations to come," Dr. Hall said. "We can look at what drove changes in organisms, and this could help predict how species might adapt in the future. As ecosystems change, this data spotlights populations for monitoring, conservation and protection."

Taxonomic descriptors, species occurrence records, and ecotype layering allow researchers to use ARGA to filter and search the indexed genomics data, and to track every species in Australia.

Genome Tracker and ARGA use the existing research infrastructure capabilities of the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA), Australia's national biodiversity data infrastructure, which is hosted by CSIRO, the national science agency.