Recommendations for interpreting zooplankton metabarcoding and integrating molecular methods with morphological analyses

Abstract Metabarcoding of zooplankton communities is becoming more common, but molecular results must be interpreted carefully and validated with morphology-based analyses, where possible. To evaluate our metabarcoding approach within the California Current Ecosystem, we tested whether physical subsampling PCR replication affects observed community composition; composition resolved by comparable to morphological analyses digital imaging; pH neutralization ethanol ammonium hydroxide diversity. We found that (1) was important accurately resolve alpha diversity can decrease sensitivity rare taxa; (2) there were significant correlations between relative read abundance proportions carbon biomass for most taxonomic groups analyzed, such relationships showed better agreement dominant groups; (3) in had no effect on Together, these indicate appropriate replication, paired characterize structure biomass, methods are some extent indicative when absolute measures or not available.