An investigation on intertidal zone amphipod crustaceans on the coasts of the south Shetland Islands and Antarctic Peninsula west coast islands using dna barcoding method

After Gondwana's breakup, Antarctica got isolated as a continent resulting in the endemicity of the organisms, well-adapted to their extreme habitats. Antarctic Peninsula is vulnerable to climate change and environmental stressors, including tourism and fisheries, among others. Species that might not adapt to such environmental changes can face extinction. Studies indicate that invertebrates comprise 97% of animal species and are the most vulnerable. They need to be represented more since most studies focused on charismatic species like sea birds, mammals, and fishes. Species identification and distribution are crucial for conservation initiatives. Since traditional taxonomy requires time and expertise, barcoding is utilized to identify species and estimate the species diversity of cryptic and error-prone groups. We precisely utilized the COI barcode for the "reverse taxonomy" approach to identify and estimate phylogeographic relationships of Antarctic amphipods collected during Turkish Antarctic expeditions in 2017, 2018, and 2019. We observed Bovallia gigantea, Vibilia antarctica, Eurymera monticulosa, Gondogeneia antarctica, Cheirimedon femoratus, Hippomedon kergueleni, Prostebbingia brevicornis, Orchomenella rotundifrons, and Paramoera walkeri. A non-target sequence was amplified and found to be related to Shewanella. An individual was assigned to the Paraceradocus genus based on morphology. We could not identify four OTUs at the species level through DNA barcoding. The next step of this study is to collaborate with Antarctic amphipod taxonomists to determine if these morphotypes are new species or belong to species that have already been defined. Despite ongoing taxonomic research on Antarctic amphipods, more barcodes still need to be uploaded to BOLD and GenBank.