The Importance of Next-generation Sequencing for Marine Larvae Research: Insight into Larvae Settlement and Anti-fouling

Larvae of marine invertebrates are important constituents of intertidal and sediment marine ecosystems around the world. They are ecologically and economically important species. For example, the barnacles are most dominant group of fouling organisms and are extensively used in larval settlement and anti-fouling research [1]. The bryozons and polychaetes are also cosmopolitan fouling organisms distributed in intertidal to shallow subtidal water [2,3]. These species form large colonies on ship hulls, piers and underwater structures causing a serious economic loss to shipping industries. It has been reported that biofouling of such species cost billions of dollars in shipping industry [4]. The academic and industrial marine research is mainly focused on biofouling species with the goal of understanding their larval settlement process and hoping for prevention of settlement and accumulation of such species on underwater structures. The life cycle of most marine invertebrates has two distinct stages: the pelagic larvae and the adults attached to marine substratum [5]. Understanding the larval settlement and attachment processes is important for prevention of biofouling. Most of the anti-fouling studies target larvae settlement process. However, process of settlement at molecular level is largely unknown due to limited genome information available for these species. In recent years, rapid technological advances in next-generation sequencers (NGS) have opened up possibilities to sequence larval transcriptome of marine invertebrates. Since NGS rapidly generates huge amount of sequence data in a very cost-effective way, larval biologists are now starting to integrate such sequencing methods into their research methods.