title: 18S rRNA gene amplification of Great Salt Lake Winogradsky Column
design: DNA extracted from seven-year incubation of a 137 cm x 30.5 cm Winogradsky column on display at the Natural History Museum of Utah. The column was initially filled with sediment and brine from the hypersaline north arm of Great Salt Lake. We amplified the 16S rRNA genes of bacteria and archaea using the 515 forward and reverse primers for the V4 variable region (Walters et al., 2016), the 18S rRNA genes of eukaryotes using EUK1391 forward and reverse primers for the hypervariable region (Rodriguez-Sanchez et al., 2019), and the Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) gene of fungi using ITS forward and reverse primers (Walters et al., 2016). Pooled and purified PCR products were used to prepare an Illumina DNA library. Sequencing was performed at MR DNA (www.mrdnalab.com, Shallowater, TX, USA) on MiSeq.