There was strong competition for the student and post doc prizes at the 8th International Barcode of Life Conference. A total of 120 presentations were each evaluated by two senior delegates at the conference. Needless to say, coordinating this was quite a logistic challenge, but Elisabeth made sure everything ran smoothly. A big thank you to all evaluators and everyone that entered the competition!
There were many very good presentations, and choosing the final winners was not an easy task. However, the evaluators awarded following presenters:
The Genome Prize for best student oral presentation (2 awards, $500 each)
Christian Stolz: The nestling diet of high arctic snow buntings (Plectrophenax nivalis) assessed by DNA-metabarcoding.
Vanessa Mata: What shapes bat’s diets? Trophic snapshot of a Mediterranean bat community.
The Genome Prize for best student poster presentation (2 awards, $300 each)
Lasse Topstad: Tardigrade diversity assessment using morphology, DNA barcoding and multi-marker metabarcoding.
Physilia Chua: Use of emerging complete organelle DNA reference databases in the diet analyses of the herbivorous bird, western capercaillies (Tetrao urogallus)
The AllGenetics Student and Post Doc Award for industrial applications using DNA barcoding and DNA metabarcoding (1 award, €400)
Bilgenur Baloglu: Get outside: Metabarcoding with the Nanopore MinION.
The Pensoft Publishers Award for best student oral or poster presentation in metabarcoding or metagenomics (1 award, €500)
Christina Lynggaard: Metabarcoding of bulk arthropod samples reveal vertebrate diversity.
ID-Gene ecodiagnostics Award for best student presentation for DNA barcoding and DNA metabarcoding applied to bio-monitoring (1 award, €500)
Lucas Sire: DNA metabarcoding to quantify the ecological impact of forest decline on flying insect diversity in the Pyrenees.
The Diversity Prize for best Post Doc presentation (1 award, $500)
Michelle L. D’Souza: The Kruger Malaise Program: Understanding the role national parks play in supporting biodiversity.
The Genome Prize for best Post Doc presentation (2 awards, $500 each)
Arne Beermann: DNA metabarcoding of macroinvertebrates in a multiple stressor mesocosm experiment manipulating salinity, fine sediment and flow velocity.
Bettina Thalinger: Monitoring fish communities in Alpine rivers via eDNA.
The extraordinary NorBOL Award to young, talented scientists (1 award, NOK 2000)
Alexei Elias-Valdez: High diversity of dried “Charales” in food makets: A Mexican Barcode of Life network example in the formation of bachelor students.
The iBOL2019 prize winners. Photo Jonathan Miller.