16S rDNA of microbial community in seawater: nSM
16S rDNA sequencing was conducted using primers 515F and 926R (Walters et al., 2015) as further described by Givati et al. (2024). In short, amplicons were generated using a two-stage PCR protocol, and libraries were sequenced on an Illumina MiSeq platform (V3 chemistry, 2  300 bp reads) with a 15% phiX spike-in. Library preparation and sequencing were performed at the Genomics and Microbiome Core Facility, Rush University, IL, USA.