•  
  •  
 

D.U.Quark

Abstract

Diatoms are unicellular algae that are found in freshwater. Diatom communities are useful for monitoring water quality because they are directly impacted by pH, conductivity, phosphorus, and nitrogen content. Current methods of identifying the taxonomic makeup of a diatom community include morphological analysis with microscopy and eDNA metabarcoding. Both methods can be applied together to assess water quality by identifying indicator diatoms. However, microscopy methods are time-consuming, eDNA metabarcoding methods are unstandardized, and DNA databases are unorganized. This review explores the differences between morphology and eDNA metabarcoding methods, the cons of each method, and how they are both used for environmental studies. The analysis of microscopy and DNA metabarcoding guides scientists to use the method best suited for their studies, and could be used to standardize procedures using extraction methods, primers, and DNA databases in the future

First Page

70

Last Page

78

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Download

Share

COinS