Researchers, students, conservation managers and other stakeholders attended in-person and online an introductory open day at the Australian Biodiversity Discovery Facility (ABDF) to hear about and observe the novel DiversityScanner technology.

Talks were given by ANU researchers Megan Head, Rod Peakall, and Justin Borevitz, and collaborators from the Museum fur Naturkunde and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany).

The DiversityScanner technology, developed by Rudolf Meier (Museum fur Naturkunde) and Lorenz Wührl (both speakers on the day) and Christian Pylatiuk (Karlsruher Institut für Technologie), combines robotics, machine learning and high-throughput genomic sequencing to scan, classify and quantify invertebrate taxa from bulk environmental samples.

Participants got the opportunity to observe the DiversityScanner technology first hand when Rachel Mapperson and Lorenz Wührl gave detailed tours of the facility over the lunch break. The day concluded with a round table and panel discussion session which gave participants the opportunity to discuss potential projects to assist with testing and development of the technology and pipelines for discovering, identifying and monitoring biodiversity.

Attendees with wide-ranging interests joined from UC, CSIRO, ANU, Federal Gov, NT Gov, ACT Gov, AIMS, QLD Gov, Greening Aus, JCU, Latrobe Uni, Uni Adelaide, SA Museum, Ausvet, NRM, Uni of Agriculture Multan Pakistan, NRCA's Australian National Insect and Fish Collections, and more.

The ABDF team continued to showcase the DiversityScanner technology, joining the Ecogenomics and Bioinformatics Lab (EBL) with over 50 other exhibitors at the 2024 ANU Research Infrastructure Expo the following day.

To further develop the technology for Australian taxa, the CBA are now seeking expressions of interest from people who would like to trial the use of DiversityScanner and associated pipelines for use in their research or monitoring projects.