Diatom DNA metabarcoding for ecological assessment: Comparison among bioinformatics pipelines used in six European countries reveals the need for standardization.

Ecological assessment of lakes and rivers using benthic diatom assemblages currently requires considerable taxonomic expertise to identify species using light microscopy. This traditional approach is also time-consuming. Diatom metabarcoding is a promising alternative and there is increasing interest in using this approach for routine assessment.