Sponging up diversity: Evaluating metabarcoding performance for a taxonomically challenging phylum within a complex cryptobenthic community
Despite their ecological importance, sponges are often avoided in biodiversity studies and monitoring programs because they are notoriously difficult to identify using morphological or molecular methods. Here, we investigate the metabarcoding performance of universal degenerate cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) primers in detecting species from this challenging phylum in a cryptobenthic community. Twenty-two modified […]
