Posidonia oceanica holobiont: leaves and environmental bacterial community metagenome. Posidonia holobiont: leaves and environmental bacterial community

Seagrasses harbour different and rich epiphytic microbial communities on and in their tissues. These microbes may establish intimate and symbiotic relationships with the seagrass plants, and change according to host species, environmental conditions, and/or the ecophysiological status of their seagrass host.Here we applied 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing to explore the microbiome associated with the leaves of P. oceanica growing in two geomorphologically-different meadows (e.g. depth, substrate, turbidity) within the Limassol Bay (Cyprus). In both sites plants showed healthy morphological and biochemical parameters and showed similar leaves' bacterial community structure and composition. This study provides a baseline for the knowledge of the P. oceanica microbiome and further supports its use as a putative seagrass descriptor.