Insights into the 16S Microbial Biodiversity of Two Rocky Shores Assisted by Citizen Science

This study assessed bacterial and protist biodiversity in intertidal rocky shoreline rock pools at two UK locations using DNA metabarcoding of citizen science samples collected during the first UK Marine Citizen Science Week (March 2025), organized by The Rock Pool Project under the Defra-funded marine Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment programme. Samples from heterogeneous intertidal environments were collected by non-specialist volunteers using basic equipment, delivered to the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), and analyzed via Nanopore long-read sequencing of amplicon libraries targeting the 16S rRNA genes to profile microbial community structure across the two sites.