Comparison of Morphological Analysis and DNA Metabarcoding of Crustacean Mesozooplankton in the Yellow Sea

Studies on marine zooplankton diversity and ecology are important for understanding marine ecosystem, as well as environmental conservation and fisheries management. DNA metabarcoding is known as a useful tool to reveal and understand diversity among animals, but a comparative evaluation with classical microscopy is still required in order to properly use it for marine zooplankton research. This study compared crustacean mesozooplankton taxa revealed by morphological analysis and metabarcoding of the cytochrome oxidase I (COI). A total of 17 crustacean species were identified by morphological analysis, and 18 species by metabarcoding. Copepods made up the highest proportion of taxa, accounting for more than 50% of the total number of species delineated by both methods. Cladocerans were not found by morphological analysis, whereas amphipods and mysids were not detected by metabarcoding. Unlike morphological analysis, metabarcoding was able to identify decapods down to the species level. There were some discrepancies in copepod species, which could be due to a lack of genetic database, or biases during DNA extraction, amplification, pooling and bioinformatics. Morphological analysis will be useful for ecological studies as it can classify and quantify the life history stages of marine zooplankton that metabarcoding cannot detect. Metabarcoding can be a powerful tool for determining marine zooplankton diversity, if its methods or database are further supplemented.