2015 Volume 62 Issue 1 Pages 39-43
A review of the current status of DNA barcoding in pelagic cnidarians is given. Most current studies tend towards using the 16S mitochondrial ribosomal RNA gene for barcoding purposes in pelagic cnidarians, judged more appropriate for this group than the mitochondrial COI gene. Although further studies on mitochondrial genome structure and the prevalence of nuclear insertions of mitochondrial sequences (NUMTs) are advised, empirically it seems that the sequence fragment of the 16S gene that is currently being used is robust enough to apply DNA barcoding to a range of outstanding questions concerning the taxonomy, ecology and biology of pelagic cnidarians.
