The overarching goals of Integrative Taxonomy and DNA Barcoding (TAXA) is to conduct integrative biosystematic research of excellent quality. This encompasses for instance description of species and their distribution, analysis of evolutionary relationships and understanding of processes leading to speciation. We use our expertise in the field to implement high-end infrastructure and develop methodology for molecular analysis of single taxa and species communities. The improvement, maintenance and use of scientific collections is central to this work.

Members of TAXA base their research on natural history collections to increase the understanding of biodiversity in time and space. By combining data from morphology, genetics, biogeography and ecology, we perform integrative biosystematic research. We also develop and maintain the infrastructure needed to use molecular tools in biodiversity assessments and monitoring. As part of this work we conduct methodological research to improve analysis of species communities in eDNA, bulk samples and sedaDNA. We also contribute to the development and maintenance of NorBOL, the national research infrastructure on DNA barcoding. The members of TAXA include personnel directly linked to the natural history collections at the Department of Natural History and are extensively involved in outreach activities and teaching. Research performed in TAXA is taxonomically complementary and methodologically broad. We aim to develop comparative studies across organism groups and offer exciting student projects