Meiofauna Community Diversity Targeted Locus (Loci): Methods Examination. marine sediment metagenome

Meiofauna, which comprise animals less than 1mm living between sediment grains, are important in food webs and nutrient exchange between the benthos and water column. Herein, we used Illumina high-throughput amplicon sequencing of the eukaryotic hypervariable V9 region of the 18S rRNA gene to compared meiofauna community composition from DNA extracted directly from sediment as well as decanted material retained on a 45 µm sieve. Furthermore, how different sequence quality filtering methods and OTU clustering impact the genetic assessment of meiofauna community composition was assessed.