Approach

The approach of this initiative is to treat molecular information similarly to morphological information as used in an identification key. A first rough identification will be provided by the use of one single marker (such as COI). In addition to COI, the committee suggests using a complementary marker for each order to provide better resolution. If necessary, specific markers are suggested to resolve species in groups where two markers are insufficient.

For details on the primers and annealing temperatures see the "primers" section. In octocorals, considering the currently available database, msh1 will provide better first step identification than COI.