plankton net tow metagenome. marine plankton metagenome

For marine zooplankton assemblages, accurate assessment (both taxonomic composition and abundances) is a critical component of effective ecosystem-based conservation and resource management efforts. To address this need and determine the extent of agreement between methods, we compared morphological taxonomy and 454 NGS data for zooplankton assemblages collected in plankton net tows from northern Monterey bay, California. Our results indicate areas of agreement between data sets, but also characterize biases specific to each method.