Microbiome of two Amazon freshwater sponges, Drulia brownii and Tubella paulula
Abstract
For the project, sampling was conducted in the Tapajós River (Santarém, Pará, Brazil), a clear-water, oligotrophic system strongly influenced by Amazonian seasonality. Two contrasting sites were selected: Praia do Cajueiro, an urbanized and anthropogenically impacted freshwater beach, and Ponta do Cururu, a non-urbanized site located approximately 4.7 km away. Collections of adult sponges were performed during two hydrological extremes of the Amazon flood pulse: the rainy season (July 2023) and the dry season (November 2023). DNA was extracted from bulk sponge tissue and gemmules using the FastDNA SPIN Kit for Soil, without prior gemmule sterilization to preserve epibacterial communities. DNA quality was assessed by 1% agarose gel electrophoresis. Two sponge species consistently present across samples were selected for shotgun metagenomic sequencing, yielding 18 libraries (two species, two seasons, and three biological replicates per condition). Sequencing was performed on an Oxford Nanopore PromethION P2 platform. The raw sequencing reads generated in this study have been deposited in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) BioProject database under accession number PRJNA1420500. The Metagenome-Assembled Genomes (MAGs) recovered from the sponge microbiomes, along with the Cytochrome c Oxidase subunit I (COI/CO1) gene sequences used for the taxonomic identification of all sponge individuals, are publicly available via this Zenodo deposit. The culture obtained Cyanobacterial genomes are also deposited here.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Marine Sponges and Natural Products
Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology
Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
- Publication date
- 1 March 2026
- Language
- EN
- Document type
- Dataset