Abstract
Marine zooplankton are rapid-responders and useful indicators of environmental variability and climate change impacts on pelagic ecosystems on time scales ranging from seasons to years to decades. The systematic complexity and taxonomic diversity of the zooplankton assemblage has presented significant challenges for routine morphological (microscopic) identification of species in samples collected during ecosystem monitoring and fisheries management surveys. Metabarcoding using the mitochondrial Cytochrome Oxidase I (COI) gene region has shown promise for detecting and identifying species of some – but not all – taxonomic groups in samples of marine zooplankton. This study examined species diversity of zooplankton on the Northwest Atlantic Continental Shelf using 27 samples collected in 2002-2012 from the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank, and Mid-Atlantic Bight during Ecosystem Monitoring (EcoMon) Surveys by the NOAA NMFS Northeast Fisheries Science Center. COI metabarcodes were identified using the MetaZooGene Barcode Atlas and Database ( https://metazoogene.org/MZGdb ) specific to the North Atlantic Ocean. A total of 181 species across 23 taxonomic groups were detected, including a number of sibling and cryptic species that were not discriminated by morphological taxonomic analysis of EcoMon samples. In all, 67 species of 15 taxonomic groups had ≥ 50 COI sequences; 23 species had >1,000 COI sequences. Comparative analysis of molecular and morphological data showed significant correlations between COI sequence numbers and microscopic counts for 5 of 6 taxonomic groups and for 5 of 7 species with >1,000 COI sequences for which both types of data were available. Multivariate statistical analysis showed clustering of samples within each region based on both COI sequence numbers and EcoMon counts, although differences among the three regions were not statistically significant. The results demonstrate the power and potential of COI metabarcoding for identification of species of metazoan zooplankton in the context of ecosystem monitoring.