Assessment of protist biodiversity and resilience of the benthic microbial assemblages in sub-tidal and intertidal from the Chandeleur Islands, Louisiana, 2015-06-29 to 2015-09-23

This dataset is a raw sequence reads from samples collected from Chandeleur Islands, Louisiana from 2015-06-29 to 2015-09-23. Marine sediment microbial communities play a critical role in primary production, sediment oxygenation, key biogeochemical cycles, and provide a nutrient-rich food source for benthic invertebrates. While the photosynthetic organisms drive productivity at the surface, protists and other non-photosynthetic organisms dominate metabolic processes including hydrocarbon degradation in deeper sediments. In an effort to understand the response and recovery of benthic microbial assemblages in sediments we embarked on an intensive field survey in the Chandeleur Islands, an area impacted by the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) spill. Field sites were selected representing an oiling gradient based on NOAA Shoreline Cleanup and Assessment Technique (SCAT) surveys over a range of habitats, including salt marsh, un-vegetated sand, and seagrass meadows. Triplicate sediment cores (0-30cm) were collected from each habitat across the four field sites in June and September of 2015. Cores were sectioned and sub-samples were taken for genomic DNA isolation. Microbenthic community abundance and biodiversity were investigated with Illumina MiSeq 2 x 250 bp technology for 108 sediment samples. Research background and DNA sequence data can be accessed at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) under accession number PRJNA630066.