Darwin Tree of Life Project

The Darwin Tree of Life project produces high-quality reference genomes for all findable species of animals, plants, fungi and protists in Britain and Ireland.

For the latest genome releases, activities and other news from Darwin Tree of Life, visit the project website.

About Darwin Tree of Life

Darwin Tree of Life is a collaborative project between biodiversity, genomics and analysis partners.

It is part of a global initiative – the Earth BioGenome Project.

Our mission is to sequence the genomes of all wild species to assist in conservation of diversity, aid development of new biotechnology and improve human societal health.

Making a reference genome 

Project partners collect and identify specimens following clear ethical and legal guidelines. Each specimen is then processed through the Tree of Life’s Genome Engine, a workflow that produces high-quality genome assemblies.

This pipeline includes DNA and RNA extraction, sequencing, assembly and annotation.

The end product of the process is a reference-quality genome for each species found in Britain and Ireland. These reference genomes are released freely and openly to the wider public.

You can explore the project’s data via the Darwin Tree of Life project portals:

• Explore data that has already been released – European Bioinformatic Institute’s Darwin Tree of Life Portal
• Check on the status of species in progress within the Tree of Life’s Genome Engine
• Research papers describing the genomes published so far.

Open access data

Darwin Tree of Life project openly shares data to promote use in biological research, conservation, biotechnology and beyond.

Economic impact

The economic impact of the Project has been outlined and can be read in full here.

You can find a quick summary covering the key points of the economic report here or read online below: