Intertidal Meiofauna Community Diversity Targeted Locus (Loci)

Meiofauna, which comprise animals less than 1mm living between sediment grains, are important in food webs and nutrient exchange between the benthos and water column. Recent studies have focused on these communities in the Gulf of Mexico due to potential impacts of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (DWHOS). In particular, intertidal meiofaunal communities from Mobile Bay and Dauphin Island, Alabama were previously shown to shift from predominately metazoan taxa prior to DWHOS to a fungal dominated community after the spill; however, knowledge of seasonal and temporal variation within these communities remains unknown. Herein, we used Illumina high-throughput amplicon sequencing of the eukaryotic hypervariable V9 region of the 18S rRNA gene to examine seasonal and temporal variation of the same locations five Mobile Bay and Dauphin Island, Alabama locations previously sampled. The upper 0-3cm and 3-10cm sediment depth fractions were sampled bi-monthly from July 2011 to July 2012 and community composition was determined using bioinformatics approaches.