Molecular identification of freshwater copepods and its application to studies on biodiversity

Abstract

Molecular identification, such as with DNA barcoding, of freshwater copepods has huge potential. It may enable us to identify specimens at species level, even though the copepods in a sample lack diagnostic morphological characters (e.g., eggs and juveniles). It may also provide us with information on the prehistory of copepod species in the geographical area considered. Similarly, it may enable us to specify the donor area(s) of non-indigenous copepod species. Thus, molecular identification of freshwater copepods may be of great importance in terms of biodiversity conservation; however, the development of sequence libraries needs to be hurried as copepods are currently one of the worst represented groups in genetic databases.