Science Forum: The critical importance of vouchers in genomics
- Louisiana State University, United States
Abstract
A voucher is a permanently preserved specimen that is maintained in an accessible collection. In genomics, vouchers serve as the physical evidence for the taxonomic identification of genome assemblies. Unfortunately, the vast majority of vertebrate genomes stored in the Genbank database do not refer to voucher specimens. Here, we urge researchers generating new genome assemblies to deposit voucher specimens in accessible, permanent research collections, and to link these vouchers to publications, public databases, and repositories. We also encourage scientists to deposit voucher specimens in order to recognize the work of local field biologists and promote a diverse and inclusive knowledge base, and we recommend best practices to in voucher deposition to prevent taxonomic errors and ensure reproducibility and legality in genetic studies.
Data availability
Summarized information on the genomes included in this assessment are available at: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.6wwpzgmz4.
Article and author information
Author details
Prosanta Chakrabarty
Funding
National Science Foundation (IOB-1754417)
- Brant C Faircloth
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2021, Buckner et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Science Forum: The critical importance of vouchers in genomics
eLife 10:e68264.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.68264
