LAUSR

ABSTRACT Water mites are a highly diverse group of arachnids that are morphologically difficult to analyse and for which many species have yet to be described. Furthermore, the representation of Great Lakes water mites in cytochrome oxidase 1 gene (COI) DNA barcode databases has been reported to be practically nil. To help remedy this gap in taxonomic knowledge, water mites collected in 2012–2013 in benthic samples from the Toledo Harbor region (Maumee River and Maumee Bay) of Western Lake Erie were identified to genus, their COI barcodes amplified and sequenced, and their relationships in a neighbour-joining tree determined. Limnesia yielded a clade with multiple branches, part within 1% of previous GenBank sequences and others less than 95% similar. Barcodes of Krendowskia and Koenikea are the first for these genera in GenBank. This analysis contributes new molecular barcodes for water mites in the Laurentian Great Lakes including the first publicly available barcodes for two genera.