Figure 1. The DNA barcoding workflow.

Students participating in the Barcoding Life's Matrix program are engaged in a complete and integrated analytic workflow that includes the following core activities: collecting targeted marine specimens and processing/curating corresponding tissue; recording specimen data and collection event details using mobile computing technology; uploading specimen data to BOLD-SDP, an online workbench and data repository that was specifically designed for the educational community (see Figure 3 for additional details); generating CO1 amplicons using accessible and widely applied molecular-biology-based laboratory techniques (e.g., gDNA extraction, PCR amplification, agarose gel electrophoresis, silica spin-column purification of PCR products); assembling contigs and editing nucleotide sequence data using a suite of Internet-based bioinformatics tools and software; and uploading raw trace files and edited nucleotide sequence data to BOLD-SDP.