A comparison of metabarcoding and morphology-based identification of protist communities

This thesis is focusing on metabarcoding; its history, principles and current use in science. Metabarcoding brings us a new way to observe a diversity of protists. Although the protists are ubiquitous on the Earth and play a key role in the majority of biological processes, our knowledge of their diversity is still very poor. Traditional microscopy techniques are mostly based on morphology-based identification of taxa. However, they are not so suitable for investigating protist diversity due to their small size, low concentration in the environment, and the convergent morphological evolution of many groups. Similarly, the metabarcoding has its pros and cons, as well. This thesis summarizes pros and cons of both techniques, trying to emphasize the need to both of them to gain a more complete insight into the diversity of protists on the Earth