Professor
Email:
phebert@uoguelph.ca
Phone number:
519-824-4120 x56668
Office:
Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (CBG) Rm. 107
Paul Hebert
Paul Hebert is an evolutionary biologist whose research for the past 25 years has sought to advance understanding of the diversity, distribution, and interactions of animal species. As Founder and CEO of the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (CBG) at the University of Guelph, he has raised more than $180 million to develop a unique research facility focused on the development and application of DNA-based identification systems. With more than 120 staff and 65,000 ft2 in purpose-built laboratories, the CBG is one of 19 Major Research Infrastructures funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation. The CBG provides informatics, organizational, and sequencing services needed to complete major projects. As Scientific Director of the International Barcode of Life consortium, Hebert has led the largest research programs ever undertaken in biodiversity science; the $120M BARCODE 500K (2010-2015) and $180M BIOSCAN (2019-2028) projects. As Professor and Canada Research Chair at Guelph, he has trained more than 100 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. His nearly 600 publications have generated 121,000 citations and an h-index of 143. He is an Officer in the Order of Canada, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and has four honorary degrees. He received the 2018 Heineken Prize for the Environment, the 2020 MIDORI Prize for Biodiversity, and the 2024 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Earth & Environmental Science.
- B.Sc. - Queens 1969
- Ph.D. - Cambridge 1972
Honorary Degrees:
- D.Sc. - University of Waterloo 2011
- LL.D. - University of Windsor 2012
- D.Sc. - Western University 2018
- D.Sc. - NTNU – Norwegian University of Science and Technology 2021
A detailed understanding of biodiversity is critical for progress in ecology, evolution, and conservation, but most species are unknown. My work is empowering biodiversity science by creating a DNA-based identification system to resolve the taxonomic impediment. My laboratory first proposed and has subsequently led the development of a research program that employs sequence diversity in short, standardized gene regions (DNA barcodes) for specimen identification and species discovery. Our work has established that most species have long enough histories and tight enough reproductive isolation to permit their diagnosis with very limited sequence information. As a result, highly effective identification systems can be based on the sequence characterization of a single or, at most, a few gene regions. DNA barcoding has now gained acceptance as transformative technology as it represents a fundamental shift from past reliance on morphological characters to identify and discover species. By enabling the automation of specimen identifications and the delineation of species boundaries, it has permitted the first evaluations of species richness in little-studied groups, and it is providing new details on food webs and species interactions. Our work also has important implications for basic science as it provides a screening system for species whose mitogenomes possess unusual attributes or exceptional rates of evolution. My research team plays a key role in the global DNA barcoding enterprise as it operates the largest facility for sequence analysis and the informatics platforms which store and analyze barcode data.
High-throughput sequencers have now made it possible to diversify barcode workflows and to slash analytical costs. We recently demonstrated that nanopore sequencing can recover full-length barcodes from single specimens for $0.01 apiece. This cost reduction allowed us to barcode three million specimens in 2023, work which added more than 180,000 species to the reference library. By context, the rate of species registration using morphological approaches has averaged about 7,500 species annually for the past 275 years. Given the ongoing growth in analytical capacity, the number of species with barcode records will exceed those with Linnean names by 2027, and all 20 million multicellular species will be registered by 2045. Aside from accelerating species discovery, metabarcoding makes it possible to ascertain the species composition of bulk samples, an approach that will soon enable the activation of a global biomonitoring system.
- Pakrashi A, K Thompson and PDN Hebert. 2025. Haplodiploidy accelerates mitogenome evolution in insects. Proc Royal Soc B: in press
- Ovaskainen O, S Windter, G Tikhonov, N Abrego and 17 coauthors including PDN Hebert. 2025. Common to rare transfer learning (CORAL) enables inference and prediction for a quarter million rare Malagasy arthropods. Nature Methods: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-025-02823-y.
- Prosser WJ, RM Floyd, KA Thompson and PDN Hebert. 2025. BOLDistilled: Automated construction of comprehensive but compact DNA barcode reference libraries. Molecular Ecology Resources 2025: https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.70043.
- Hebert PDN, R Floyd, S Jafarpour and SW Prosser 2025. Barcode 100K specimens: in a single Nanopore run. Molecular Ecology Resources 25: e14028.
- Dapporto L, M Menchetti, V Dinca, G Talevera, J D’Ercole, PDN Hebert and R Vila. 2024. The genetic legacy of Quaternary ice ages for West Palearctic butterflies. Science Advances 10: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adm8596
- Seymour M, T Roslin, JR deWaard, KHJ Perez, ML D’Souza, …PDN Hebert. 2024. Global arthropod beta-diversity is spatially and temporally structured by latitude. Communications Biology: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-024-06199-1
- Hebert PDN, DBG Bock and SWJ Prosser. 2023. Interrogating 1000 insect genomes for NUMTs: a risk assessment for species scans. PLOS ONE 18: e0286620.
- D’Souza. ML, M van der Bank, S Zandisile, RD Rattray, R Stewart, J van Rooyen, D Govender and PDN Hebert. 2021. Biodiversity baselines: tracking insects in Kruger National Park with DNA barcodes. Biological Conservation 256: 109034.
- Kress WJ, JAK Mazet and PDN Hebert. 2020. Intercepting pandemics through genomics. Proceedings National Academy of Sciences USA 117: 13852-13855.
- Cristescu ME and PDN Hebert. 2018. Uses and misuses of environmental DNA in biodiversity science and conservation. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 49: 209-230.
- Hollingsworth PM, M Watson, DH Janzen, W Hallwachs, S Miller and PDN Hebert. 2017. Taxonomy: avoid extra bureaucracy. Nature 546: 600.
- Hebert PDN, S Ratnasingham, EV Zakharov, V Levesque-Beaudin, AC Telfer, MA Milton, S Pedersen, P Jannetta and JR deWaard. 2016. Counting animal species with DNA barcodes: Canadian insects. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 371: 20150333.
- Hebert PDN, PM Hollingsworth and M Hajibabaei. 2016. From writing to reading the encyclopedia of life. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 371: 20150321.
- Ratnasingham S and PDN Hebert. 2013. A DNA-based registry for all animal species: The Barcode Index Number (BIN) System. PLOS ONE 8: e66213.
- Hebert PDN, JR deWaard, EV Zakahov, SWJ Prosser, JE Sones, JTA McKeown, DB Mantle and J La Salle. 2013. A DNA ‘Barcode Blitz”: Rapid digitization and sequencing of a natural history collection. PLOS ONE 8: e68535.
- Ward RD, R Hanner and PDN Hebert. 2009. The campaign to DNA barcode all fishes, FISH-BOL. J. Fish Biol. 74: 329-356.
- Ratnasingham S and PDN Hebert. 2007. BOLD: The Barcode of Life Data System (www.barcodinglife.org). Mol. Ecol. Notes 7: 355-364.
- Hebert PDN, EH Penton, J Burns, DH Janzen and W Hallwachs. 2004. Ten species in one: DNA barcoding reveals cryptic species in the neotropical skipper butterfly, Astraptes fulgerator. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 101: 14812-14817
- Hebert PDN, A Cywinska, SL Ball and JR deWaard. 2003. Biological identifications through DNA barcodes. Proc. R. Soc. B 270: 313-321.