Department of Evolution and Ecology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616;
Department of Population Health and Reproduction, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, CA 95616.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Apr 24;115(17):4325-4333. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1720115115.
Increasing our understanding of Earth's biodiversity and responsibly stewarding its resources are among the most crucial scientific and social challenges of the new millennium. These challenges require fundamental new knowledge of the organization, evolution, functions, and interactions among millions of the planet's organisms. Herein, we present a perspective on the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP), a moonshot for biology that aims to sequence, catalog, and characterize the genomes of all of Earth's eukaryotic biodiversity over a period of 10 years. The outcomes of the EBP will inform a broad range of major issues facing humanity, such as the impact of climate change on biodiversity, the conservation of endangered species and ecosystems, and the preservation and enhancement of ecosystem services. We describe hurdles that the project faces, including data-sharing policies that ensure a permanent, freely available resource for future scientific discovery while respecting access and benefit sharing guidelines of the Nagoya Protocol. We also describe scientific and organizational challenges in executing such an ambitious project, and the structure proposed to achieve the project's goals. The far-reaching potential benefits of creating an open digital repository of genomic information for life on Earth can be realized only by a coordinated international effort.
提高我们对地球生物多样性的认识并负责任地管理其资源，是新千年最重要的科学和社会挑战之一。这些挑战需要对地球上数百万种生物的组织、进化、功能和相互作用有基本的全新认识。在此，我们提出了地球生物基因组计划（Earth BioGenome Project，EBP）的观点，这是生物学领域的一个宏伟目标，旨在在 10 年内对地球所有真核生物多样性的基因组进行测序、编目和特征描述。EBP 的成果将为人类面临的一系列重大问题提供信息，例如气候变化对生物多样性的影响、濒危物种和生态系统的保护以及生态系统服务的保护和增强。我们描述了该项目面临的障碍，包括数据共享政策，这些政策确保了一个永久性的、免费供未来科学发现使用的资源，同时尊重《名古屋议定书》的获取和惠益分享准则。我们还描述了执行如此雄心勃勃的项目所面临的科学和组织挑战，以及为实现项目目标而提出的结构。只有通过协调一致的国际努力，才能实现为地球上的生命创建开放的基因组信息数字知识库这一深远的潜在利益。
