Dynamics of zooplankton community structure throughout the year in the southern coast of Korea

Abstract

DNA metabarcoding is an analysis of DNA barcodes for species-mixed bulk samples with the high-throughput next generation sequencing (NGS) method which shows great applicability in fast and accurate identification of multiple species. The objective of this study is to assess the change of species composition in time in the pelagic zooplankton community in Tongyeong, Southern coast of Korea. Zooplankton samples were collected by vertical towing of a 60 um net from March 2013 to September 2014. The sampling was conducted biweekly during the spring tidal period resulting in 39 samples in total. A short DNA barcode region of 313 base pair COI sequence was analysed with the samples by Illumine MiSeq sequencing system. The generated sequences were clustered into 1,427 molecular operational taxonomic units in which 126 metazoan species were identified by 97% similarity cut-off value in comparison with the GenBank reference database. The results show that the zooplankton community structure in the Tongyoung water change fast in time with short term appearance of larvae or eggs. While a copepod Paracalanus parvus occurs dominantly for most of the year, another copepod Centropages abdominalis occurs only from winter to early spring. Larvae of the pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas appears in the late May from both 2013 and 2014. Larvae of a sea urchin Hemicentrotus pulcherrimus is detected only in April and May from both years. Bjective of this study is to assess the change of species composition in time in the pelagic zooplankton community in Tongyeong, Southern coast of Korea. Zooplankton samples were collected by vertical towing of a 60 um net from March 2013 to September 2014. The sampling was conducted biweekly during the spring tidal period resulting in 39 samples in total. A short DNA barcode region of 313 base pair COI sequence was analysed with the samples by Illumine MiSeq sequencing system. The generated sequences were clustered into 1,427 molecular operational taxonomic units in which 126 metazoan species were identified by 97% similarity cut-off value in comparison with the GenBank reference database. The results show that the zooplankton community structure in the Tongyoung water change fast in time with short term appearance of larvae or eggs. While a copepod Paracalanus parvus occurs dominantly for most of the year, another copepod Centropages abdominalis occurs only from winter to early spring. Larvae of the pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas appears in the late May from both 2013 and 2014. Larvae of a sea urchin Hemicentrotus pulcherrimus is detected only in April and May from both years. B