ABSTRACT
Crustaceans, including copepods, cladocerans, and ostracods, are components of the planktic community in both marine and freshwater habitats. This review describes advances in expanding knowledge of Crustacean biodiversity through the use of mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I DNA barcoding and taxonomy in freshwater environments of North America, focusing on the Laurentian Great Lakes (USA) but also including data extending south to tropical brackish/ freshwater environments from the Shipstern Peninsula (Belize). This chapter adds new records (the first barcodes for Neoergasilus japonicus, an invasive parasitic copepod in the Great Lakes; for Thermocyclops crassus, a recently identified invasive cyclopoid copepod in the Great Lakes; and several new barcodes for calanoid and cyclopoid copepods including copepods from brackish/freshwaters of northern Belize) to the literature being reviewed. The DNA barcode data, reviewed here, are useful for studying trophic and other interactions, such as the role of copepods as parasites reviewed here, and the roles of biodiverse crustacean species as both predators and prey in freshwater ecology as in other studies.
