My research throughout Africa is allowing us to strengthen the Barcode of Life Database (BOLD). We are actively barcoding the fishes collected in Kenya, Guinea, and Equatorial Guinea. Working with collaborators in the Entomology Department at the National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution) we produced barcodes for over 100 macroinvertebrates collected in central Kenya. This work is critical as field guides and keys for these ecologically important invertebrates don't exist throughout most of Africa.  These initial barcodes revealed that diversity is several orders of magnitude higher than we originally thought. 

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We will be using a Nanopore MinION sequencer to produce barcodes for thousands of invertebrates collected during the upcoming IRES and National Geographic expeditions. This will greatly improve our understanding of the diversity within these systems and help to produce guides that can be used to assess the health of these freshwater habitats.