DNA metabarcoding of the phytoplankton of Great Salt Lake Gilbert Bay

The Great Salt Lake (GSL) is a unique hypersaline system with an understudiedphytoplankton assemblage supporting a productive open water ecosystem in the largest embayment of the lake, Gilbert Bay. Determination of phytoplankton by microscopy has practical limitations that can constrain the scope of a study, but DNA metabarcoding may improve upon this through higher taxonomic resolution and the capacity to generate a large volume of assemblage data in comparatively little time. To determine if metabarcoding could replicate microscopy and expand the assessment of GSL phytoplankton, a 23S SSU rRNA metabarcoding and microscopy survey of Gilbert Bay was conducted in 2017 and 2018.