microbial mat sample Raw sequence reads

Thermal springs have extreme water temperature that allows the growth of unique microbial communities. Microbial mats present in these extreme physicochemical conditions form complex microbial community structures and play crucial roles in biogeochemical cycles. Our understanding of microbial community structures in extreme environments is still in infancy stages, and more detailed research is needed on microbial mats obtained from a diversity of extreme environments. Microbial mats were collected from two different hot springs (Brandvlei and Calitzdorp) and subjected to analysis using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), sequencing (illumina’s MiSeq platform) and metagenomic analysis.