PRJNA473166
Sediment metagenomes from the Great Bay Estuary of New Hampshire, USA
The purpose of this project was to characterize the sediment microbiomes in the Great Bay Estuary (GBE) of New Hampshire, USA. The GBE is in the Gulf of Maine, extending 19 km inland from the mouth of the Piscataqua River and occupying more than 24 km^2, making it one of the largest and most recessed estuaries on the US Atlantic coast. It receives fresh water from seven river systems, and is influenced twice daily by high-energy tidal waters. It contains salt marsh, channel bottom, rocky intertidal, mudflats and eelgrass meadow habitats. The GBE is impacted by shipping, stormwater, wastewater treatment plants, septic systems and other anthropogenic stressors, as well as changing precipitation patterns that include more extreme storm events, and sea level rise. Areas of concern include increased nitrogen loading, persistent contamination with mercury and DDT, declining oyster and eelgrass populations, increasing clam disease, and marsh loss. Total sediment DNA was extracted from an urban fringing marsh on the Cocheco River, and a relatively pristine marine sediment adjacent to an oyster bed. The DNA was subjected to metagenomic shotgun sequencing using Illumina TruSeq technology (100 bp, paired end reads).