Metabarcoding of sediments samples from the Heraklion Gulf (Crete, Greece) in the framework of the JERICO-NEXT project.

The study aimed at investigating the impact of a sewage output on benthic microbial community composition in the Heraklion Gulf. Sampling cruises were performed on October 2016 and July 2017 with the R/V Philia. Five stations located along a predefined gradient starting from the sewage outfall (close to the shore and at shallow depth) until a control station at 200-meter depth where no effect of the sewage outfall should be detected were sampled during both cruises. Samples were collected using cylindrical sampling corers (internal sampling surface 15.90 cm2) which were placed inside a Smith McIntyre Grab in order to collect sub-samples of the sediment upper layer (0–2 cm).