What is DNA Barcoding?

DNA barcoding first came to the attention of the scientific community in 2003 when Paul Hebert's research group at the University of Guelph published a paper titled "Biological identifications through DNA barcodes". In it, they proposed a new system of species identification and discovery using a short section of DNA from a standardized region of the genome. That DNA sequence can be used to identify different species, in the same way a supermarket scanner uses the familiar black stripes of the UPC barcode to identify your purchases.