Your Title, Name, Place of work?
Dr. Sarah Bourlat, Bonn

What is your current position/function at our institute?
Head of Metabarcoding Section, zbm (Centre for Biodiversity Monitoring and Conservation Science)

What do you like about your job/position?
What I like about my job is being able to focus on the pressing and fundamental issue of documenting and preserving biodiversity and really trying to make a difference in the long term, while also inspiring younger generations of scientists to engage in this mission.

Can you please describe your tasks at the LIB?
Currently, my main interest lies in the development of DNA-based methods for biodiversity monitoring in both aquatic and terrestrial habitats. Targeted and community-based approaches such as metabarcoding are already widely used in research, but the challenge lies in the use of these methods for the calculation of ecological indices and their uptake by conservation agencies and in large-scale monitoring programmes. Now is a really exciting time for the development of eDNA based methods and I am really happy to be able to contribute to this research field and the new opportunities this will bring for the conservation of species

Keyword
Metabarcoding

Is there something about the Institute that particularly appeals to you?
What appeals to me is the wide cross section of research topics at the LIB. Being able to work with colleagues from different sections and collections allows us to be creative and generate new project ideas.

 

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