Unfortunately, the 18S gene has low resolution when it comes to distinguishing closely related species, –. Such molecular studies typically use the 18S rDNA, mainly because of the availability of universal nematode primers and its phylogenetic resolution at the genus and higher taxon level. Hence, the identification of nematodes could greatly benefit from the use of molecular tools, as these may provide a faster and more reliable estimate of nematode diversity –. This may be problematic, because functional roles of nematodes may be highly species-specific, and their population dynamics can be affected by the presence of closely related species, often congeners –. Therefore, nematode communities are usually only surveyed up to genus rather than species level. This is due to the paucity of diagnostic characters and the fact that these characters are often doubtful to score and interpret, particularly when relying on traditional light microscopy. Nevertheless, the study of free-living marine nematodes is held back because their morphological identification is notoriously difficult. They play an important role in benthic food webs where they are a high quality food source for higher trophic groups and at the same time influence the composition of lower trophic groups. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.įree-living nematodes dominate marine sediments both in terms of densities (10 5–10 7 individuals m −2) and diversity (>10 species cm −2). acknowledges a postdoctoral fellowship from the F.W.O. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.įunding: This research was financially supported by the Flemish Fund for Scientific Research (F.W.O.) through the project 3G040407 and the research grant 1507709, and by Ghent University through the Special Research Fund (B.O.F.) project B/07778/02. Received: JAccepted: OctoPublished: October 28, 2010Ĭopyright: © 2010 Derycke et al. PLoS ONE 5(10):Įditor: Peter Roopnarine, California Academy of Sciences, United States of America Citation: Derycke S, Vanaverbeke J, Rigaux A, Backeljau T, Moens T (2010) Exploring the Use of Cytochrome Oxidase c Subunit 1 (COI) for DNA Barcoding of Free-Living Marine Nematodes.
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