Operational taxonomic unit (OTU)

OTUs (Operational Taxonomic Units) are formed as part of the bioinformatory process from sequences (which are usually not more than 2% different from each other).

OTUs represent a sequence that can form a cluster of several thousand sequences. In bioinformatics, sequences that do not differ from each other by more than 2% are combined into one OTU.

OTUs are valuable:

In cases where no species-ID is possible, this can of course happen in the future.