O2 microsensor profiling conducted alongside the destructive sampling of Chesapeake Bay sediments during incubation experiments at Horn Point Lab

These data were collected as part of a sediment incubation experiment, to investigate potential interactions between estuarine cable bacteria and their associated microbial community. Sediments were collected from the main channel of Chesapeake Bay at a mesohaline station that experiences seasonal oxygen depletion. The upper 10 centimeters (cm) of sediment was homogenized under anaerobic conditions, packed into polycarbonate core liners, and incubated in a dark climate-controlled room in aerated aquaria with artificial seawater (S=15.5; T=16 degrees Celsius). In a sub-set of core tubes, a 0.2 micron polycarbonate filter was held embedded at 0.5 cm depth, to block the downward growth of cable bacteria while allowing for porewater diffusion. The sediments (with and without embedded filters) were destructively sampled on 6 dates over 46 days, at which time nucleic acids, samples for microscopy, and samples for porewater geochemistry were collected. Microsensor profiling (oxygen (O2), pH, hydrogen sulfide (H2S)) was conducted alongside the destructive sampling. Associated nucleic acid data are available through NCBI Sequence Read Archive, under Bioproject PRJNA833464. Sediment porewaters were handled anaerobically, and were extracted by centrifugation followed by filtration (0.2 micron in-line filters). Geochemical data include porewater anions (sulfate and chloride) measured by ion chromatography, and ammonium and ferrous iron concentrations measured by standard colorimetric methods. Microscopy data include both counts of cable bacteria measured with FISH oligoprobe DSB706, and total single cell bacteria. The dataset was generated by Pinky Liau under the supervision of Dr. Sairah Malkin, Horn Point Laboratory, U. Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences.