Table 1.

The four primer pairs used in this metabarcoding study: 18S primer pair amplifying the V4 region and three COI primer pairs amplifying different fragments of the COI‐5P gene. See Supporting information Table S1 for the complete list of primers used for the preliminary primer testing step

Fragment	Primer name	Sequence (5′–3′)	Direction	Target taxa	Reference	Fragment size
18S	Uni18S	AGGGCAAKYCTGGTGCCAGC	F	Metazoan	Zhan et al. (2013)	310–620a
	Uni18SR	GRCGGTATCTRATCGYCTT	R	Metazoan	Zhan et al. (2013)
COI_FC	LCO1490	GGTCAACAAATCATAAAGATATTGG	F	Various phyla	Folmer et al. (1994)	325
	Ill_C_R	GGIGGRTAIACIGTTCAICC	R	Arthropoda	Shokralla et al. (2015)
COI_Leray	mlCOIintF	GGWACWGGWTGAACWGTWTAYCCYCC	F	Various phyla	Leray et al. (2013)	313
	HCO2198	TAAACTTCAGGGTGACCAAAAAATCA	R	Various phyla	Folmer et al. (1994)
COI_Folmer	LCO1490	GGTCAACAAATCATAAAGATATTGG	F	Various phyla	Folmer et al. (1994)	658
	HCO2198	TAAACTTCAGGGTGACCAAAAAATCA	R	Various phyla	Folmer et al. (1994)

^aThe 18S fragment varies in length for different species.