title: 18S Sponge: WB-00900
design: Briefly, the DNA of frozen (-80 C) samples was extracted using the DNeasy Power Soil Kit (Qiagen, Venlo, The Netherlands). After quality controls of the extracted DNA,  fragments of the 18S rRNA gene were amplified  in a PCR (95 C/2 min - (95 C/20 sec - 57 C/45 sec - 72 C/30 sec) x 30 cycles - 72 C/3 min) using the primer pair SP18aF- SP18gR. PCR products were verified by gel electrophoresis and sequencing was conducted on an ABI 3730XL DNA Analyser (Applied Biosystems, USA) by Eurofins Genomics.