Threats to global biodiversity are increasingly recognised by scientists and the public as a critical challenge. Molecular sequencing technologies offer means to catalogue, explore, and monitor the richness and biogeography of life on Earth. However, exploiting their full potential requires tools that connect biodiversity infrastructures and resources. As a research infrastructure developing services and technical solutions that help integrate and coordinate life science resources across Europe, ELIXIR is a key player. To identify opportunities, highlight priorities, and aid strategic thinking, here we survey approaches by which molecular technologies help inform understanding of biodiversity. We detail example use cases to highlight how DNA sequencing is: resolving taxonomic issues; Increasing knowledge of marine biodiversity; helping understand how agriculture and biodiversity are critically linked; and playing an essential role in ecological studies. Together with examples of national biodiversity programmes, the use cases show where progress is being made but also highlight common challenges and opportunities for future enhancement of underlying technologies and services that connect molecular and wider biodiversity domains. Based on emerging themes, we propose key recommendations to guide future funding for biodiversity research: biodiversity and bioinformatic infrastructures need to collaborate closely and strategically; taxonomic efforts need to be aligned and harmonised across domains; metadata needs to be standardised and common data management approaches widely adopted; current approaches need to be scaled up dramatically to address the anticipated explosion of molecular data; bioinformatics support for biodiversity research needs to be enabled and sustained; training for end users of biodiversity research infrastructures needs to be prioritised; and community initiatives need to be proactive and focused on enabling solutions. For sequencing data to deliver their full potential they must be connected to knowledge: together, molecular sequence data collection initiatives and biodiversity research infrastructures can advance global efforts to prevent further decline of Earth's biodiversity.

Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research Bremerhaven 27570 Germany

CNRS Sorbonne Université Station Biologique de Roscoff Roscoff 29680 France

Department of Biosciences Biotechnology and Biopharmaceutics University of Bari A Moro Bari 70126 Italy

Department of Ecology and Evolution and Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics University of Lausanne Lausanne Vaud 1015 Switzerland

Department of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology NBIS Uppsala University Uppsala Sweden

Dept of Chemistry UiT The Arctic University of Norway Tromsø Norway

DiSSCo Distributed System of Scientific Collections Naturalis Biodiversity Center Leiden 2300 RA The Netherlands

Earlham Institute Norwich NR4 7UZ UK

ELIXIR Hub Wellcome Genome Campus Cambridge CB10 1SD UK

Institute of Biomembranes Bioenergetics and Molecular Biotechnologies CNR Bari 70126 Italy

Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences Praha 142 20 Czech Republic

Laboratory of Bioinformatics Institute of Microbiology Prague 142 20 Czech Republic

Life Sciences and Chemistry Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH Bremen Germany

MARUM Center for Marine Environmental Sciences University of Bremen Bremerhaven 27570 Germany

NLBIF Netherlands Biodiversity Information Facility Naturalis Biodiversity Center Leiden 2300 RA The Netherlands

Plazi Bern 3007 Switzerland

Université Paris Saclay Versailles 78026 France

University of Milan Bicocca Milan 20127 Italy

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