Abstract
This chapter analyses the bioinformatics revolution and its implications for conservation and wildlife management. Bioinformatics refers to the hardware and software that stores and analyzes the massive amount of data being generated by molecular biology today. The growth of the bioinformatics industry reflects the explosion in genomic data available to researchers in the post-Human Genome Research Project era, the steep decline in the cost of gene sequencing since the 1990s, and the recent prioritization of genomic analysis in medicine and forensics. Bioinformatics is the crucial technological scaffolding for a newly molecularized nature in which surveillance and manipulation at the genetic level begins to displace species or habitat-level interventions. This chapter begins with a discussion of bioinformatics and the twin dynamics of the digitization and molecularization of life. It then analyses the political discourse used to promote the Encyclopedia of Life before moving to an in-depth evaluation of the controversies surrounding DNA barcoding. The chapter concludes by reflecting upon digital nature, this new media space in which everything will be counted but there may be no wilderness left to enjoy.
All we have yet discovered is but a trifle in comparison with what lies hid in the great treasury of nature.
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1708)
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Fletcher, A. (2014). Bio-Inventories: The Digitization of Nature. In: Mendel's Ark. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9121-2_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9121-2_3
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