Prioritizing taxa for genetic reference database development to advance inland water conservation

Biodiversity loss has accelerated over the past century and freshwater species overall are among those experiencing greatest declines. Genetic resources have potential to help evaluate full magnitude of this represent a key tool effectively allocate conservation monitor success restoration efforts. The power genetic will be realized when daunting task referencing all DNA sequences organisms is complete. Here, we quantified availability distribution barcode genome data for macroscopic in Canada, country rich inland water thus particularly vulnerable aquatic losses. Impressively, most (86 %) were represented by barcodes recorded BOLD Systems database, while very few had genomes available (<4 NCBI database. We identified deficiencies northern regions taxa assessed as at risk or without sufficient information status classification. As expected, speciose insect group lower-than-average number records per high proportion deficient adequate coverage. This study highlights where future sequencing should prioritized within initiatives such Canada BioGenome Project BIOSCAN provides workflow that could applied internationally inform management plans mitigate biodiversity loss.