Environmental DNA of octocorals from the Kocebu seamount

Deep-sea corals, are classified as indicators of vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs) and face increasing risk from anthropogenic activities such as fishing and mining. Knowledge of their diversity and distribution is essential for conservation but is often hampered by the difficulties and high expense of sampling and identifying these organisms. Here we develop a metabarcoding analytical framework based on the barcoding-based and three auxiliary methods for identification of deep-sea corals. The framework shows better identification efficacy compared to the conventional similarity-based method. Furthermore, eDNA revealed two sites with high diversity and/or uniqueness as potential prior protected areas from future mining in the seamount.