Identification of molecular markers associated with starvation or diapause in copepods

Marine plankton are abundant and rapidly respond to environmental changes; therefore, evaluating physiological changes of plankton is crucial to understand complex marine ecosystem. The purpose of this paper is to identify molecular markers associated with starvation or diapause in copepods. First, we identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between normal condition and starved or diapausing individuals by RNA-Seq, and DEGs successfully aligned to function are selected as candidate markers. Then, we verify candidate genes as a marker for identifying starved or diapausing copepods by investigating changes in expression levels under different physiological states using quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR).