Suitability of a dual COI marker for marine zooplankton DNA metabarcoding. (August 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Schroeder, Anna; Pallavicini, Alberto; Edomi, Paolo; Pansera, Marco; Camatti, Elisa
• Is Part Of: Marine environmental research. Volume 170(2021)
• Publication Date: 2021-08
• Subjects: Biomonitoring -- COI -- Marker -- Metabarcoding -- mlCOIint -- Primer -- Zooplankton; Marine pollution -- Environmental aspects -- Periodicals; Marine ecology -- Periodicals; Mer -- Pollution -- Aspect de l'environnement -- Périodiques; Écologie marine -- Périodiques; Electronic journals; 577.705
• DOI: 10.1016/j.marenvres.2021.105444
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0141-1136

Abstract

Abtract: As DNA metabarcoding has become an emerging tool for surveying biodiversity, including its application in legally binding assessments, reliable and efficient barcodes are requested, especially for the highly diverse group of zooplankton. This study focuses on comparing the efficiency of two mitochondrial COI barcodes based on the internal primers mlCOIintF and mlCOIintR utilizing mesozooplankton samples collected in a Mediterranean lagoon. Our results indicate that after a slight adjustment, the mlCOIintR primer performs in combination with jdgLCO1490 (herein) very comparably to the much more widely used primer system mlCOIintF/jgHCO2198+dgHCO2198, in terms of level of taxonomic resolution, species detection and their relative abundance in terms of numbers of reads. As for some groups, like Ctenophora, this barcode is not suitable; a combination of them may be the best option to rely on the Folmer region in its entirety without the risk of losing information for a limited primer match. Graphical abstract: Image 1 Highlights: After slight adjustments, the mlCOIintR primer performs in combination with jdgLCO1490 (herein) very comparably to the much more widely used primer pair mlCOIintF/LCO2198. The two analyzed barcodes show similar level of taxonomic resolution. The detection of species as well as their relative abundance in terms of numbers of reads was comparable between the two barcodes. For some groups like Ctenophora, the barcode jdgLCO1490/mlCOIintR is not suitable, indicating the utility of the using them not only alternatively, but rather complementarily.