Hope for Tropical Biodiversity through True Bioliteracy

For tropical wild biodiversity to survive, it must occupy a large terrain, be permanently endowed, and be integrated with its local, national, and international society. Among other things, integration will be enormously facilitated by giving bioilliterate humanity-all seven billion of us-the ability to read wild biodiversity anywhere any time for the personal cost of a pocket comb. That is true universal bioliteracy. DNA barcoding is the technology for this, and a personal or an institutional decision to sustain its cheap cost will cut the Gordian knot.