library_construction_protocol: Samples were collected from respective sponges (control and treatment) with clean sterile scalpel and forceps. They were stored in separate vials and flash frozen with liquid nitrogen Treatment and control samples were collected from the field directly. Live sponges growing with competitors were tagged and collected for treatment samples. Total RNA was extracted using conventional TRIzol method The RNA-seq paired end sequencing libraries were prepared from the QC passed RNA samples using illumina TruSeq stranded mRNA sample prep kit