Morphological and molecular characterization of salps (Thalia spp.) from the Tristan da Cunha archipelago

The identification of salp species by morphological features alone can be challenging. This study combined morphological and molecular approaches to characterize different salp reproductive forms (oozooids and blastozooids) collected from the remote Tristan da Cunha archipelago. Novel cox1 barcoding primers developed in this study proved successful for the identification of Thalia salp species and generated much needed barcoding data for this taxonomic group.