DNA barcoding: a practical tool for fundamental and applied biodiversity research

Book excerpt: DNA barcoding has become a well-accepted and popular tool for the identification of species and the detection of cryptic taxonomic diversity. As such, it has a tremendous potential for a wide variety of applications in taxonomy, agronomy, conservation biology, forensics etc. Therefore, several countries, institutions and organizations have launched DNA barcoding projects in the context of the international ?Consortium for the Barcode of Life? (CBOL) initiative. Also Belgium has done so with the establishment of the FWO research community ?Belgian Network for DNA barcoding?. In 2012, this network organized the ?Third European Conference for the Barcode of Life? (ECBOL3) in Brussels. During this event a call was made to publish a collection of papers under the thematic title ?DNA barcoding: a practical tool for fundamental and applied biodiversity research?. With the financial support of the EC project ?ViBRANT? (Virtual Biodiversity Research and Access Network for Taxonomy), 21 papers were bundled to form this special ?ZooKeys? issue with the aim to present various applications, advantages and limitations of DNA barcoding. Hence, it is the editors? hope that this issue provides a modest, but timely, contribution to the already vast literature on DNA barcoding.