Table 1.

Relative merits of genetic and traditional methods. Criteria are worded so that desirable outcomes are always reflected in a “high” rating. Advantages of genetic methods should be taken with some caution, as many nucleic acids tools are still in development phases and have not yet fully achieved their expected potential. For instance, the affordability of genetic tools currently depends on availability of appropriate in-house or extramural molecular support, which varies widely across users, and also on sample throughput.

Criterion	Genetic methods	Traditional morphological methods
Sensitivity	HIGH	low
Specificity	HIGH	low
Ability to identify sub-adult or partial specimens	HIGH	low
Ability to identify cryptic taxa	HIGH	low
Quantification	low	HIGH
Opportunity for passive surveillance	HIGH	low
Affordability of up-front costs	low	HIGH
Affordability per sample	HIGH*	low
Speed of analytical turnaround	HIGH	low
False negative avoidance	HIGH	low
False positive avoidance	low	HIGH

^*Affordability of genetic methods is highly scale-dependent, and per sample costs are strongly negatively correlated with sample throughput.