In the context of global change, marine biodiversity is facing huge threats, thus weakening the marine ecosystem functioning and service. Free-living marine nematodes and polychaetes are the middle links of benthic marine food web and play a key role in marine ecosystem functioning. They are also the ideal indictor taxa for marine ecosystem health and have been included in the rutine monitoring programs. Their biological diversity, however, were largely underestimated due to the peculiar taxonomic impediment in these groups. This study aims at initiating the application of DNA barcoding tool which has been world-widely accepted, to study the biodiversity of free-living marine nematodes and polychaetes at the molecular level, through large-scale and multi-habitat sampling strategy; to improve DNA barcodong efficiency of the two taxa by high-throughput barcoding work flow and designing new primers; to establish DNA barcodes reference library for common nematode and polychaete species
This project dealt with sampling along the Chinese coastal waters from the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea to the East China Sea, and the northern South China Sea, covering a latitue degree of 30.