Сalanoid copepods of the genus Pseudocalanus play an important role in the plankton communities of the Arctic and boreal seas, often dominating in numbers and constituting a significant proportion of the biomass of zooplankton. Despite their high presence and significance in the shelf plankton communities, species-specific studies of the biology of these are significantly hampered by extremely small morphological differences between them, especially at the juvenile stages, at which they are virtually indistinguishable. In this paper, we describe a new, routine and low-cost molecular method for identifying all Pseudocalanus species found in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic: the Arctic P. acuspes, P. minutus and the boreal P. moultoni and P. elongatus, and apply it to describe the relative distribution of these species in four locations of the Arctic and sub-Arctic. With this method, species-specific polymerase chain reaction (ssPCR), mass identification of individuals of any developmental stage, including nauplii, is possible. This method can serve as an excellent tool for studying the species-specific biology of this group, describing their life cycles, as well as monitoring changes in Arctic marine ecosystems under the influence of changing climate.
Detection of specific polymerase chain reaction product by utilizing the 5'----3' exonuclease activity of Thermus aquaticus DNA polymerase.
