“…Despite the difficulty in visually identifying medusozoans that lack a pelagic swimming stage, our seawater eDNA analysis proved to be effective for detecting several species of hydroids and staurozoans (stalked jellyfish) lacking a swimming medusa stage. Although no single literature source exists that comprehensively documents the jellyfish fauna of Florida and the Caribbean, the results of our comparative evaluation of jellyfish biodiversity in these coastal habitats were generally consistent with the literature on medusozoans present in the region (Conant, 1897;Bigelow, 1900Bigelow, , 1918Bigelow, , 1938Mayer, 1910;Kramp, 1961;Vervoort, 1967;Larson, 1976;Humann and Deloach, 2002;Holland et al, 2004;Calder, 2009Calder, , 2013Orellana and Collins, 2011;Lasley et al, 2016;Cunha et al, 2017;Mendoza-Becerril et al, 2017;Miglietta et al, 2018;Miranda et al, 2018;Ohdera et al, 2018;NOAA, 2020) (summarized herein in Figure 7). Due to the large amount of sequence data generated, we were able to filter reads stringently and still recover a great deal of medusozoan biodiversity as a proof-ofconcept that eDNA metabarcoding with FeDS identified higher overall biodiversity than could be detected with traditional survey methods alone, validating its utility for field applications.…”