Darwin Tree of Life Extension Funding

The Darwin Tree of Life project is sequencing the genomes of all 70,000 known species of plants, animals, and fungi across Britain and Ireland. After three years of building the necessary infrastructure, the consortium has collected around 5,000 species and released roughly 2,000 complete genomes. Now, with two years of additional funding, they will scale up collection and data delivery to demonstrate that sequencing an entire nation’s biodiversity is feasible. This matters because we lack a complete genetic inventory of life on Earth. Without it, we cannot fully understand how species evolve, how ecosystems respond to climate change, or what genetic tools nature has already invented. The project fills a fundamental gap: we know species exist, but we do not know the genetic blueprints that make them tick. If successful, the project will produce an open-access catalogue of eukaryotic gene toolkits. This is primarily fundamental science—it will transform evolutionary biology and ecology. But the data could also enable practical applications: monitoring ecosystem health under environmental stress, identifying genetic resources for biotechnology, or informing conservation priorities. Similar large-scale genomics projects have already revolutionised medicine; this one could do the same for biodiversity science.