The microbiomes of five temperate soft corals declining in the Sea of Marmara

Pollution, sedimentation and physical destruction from net fishing are more imminent threats to temperate corals than thermal stress in the Sea of Marmara due to the unique conditions there. Our previous investigation into a massive die-off of benthic suspension-feeders in this inland sea revealed a knowledge gap concerning the bacterial microbiomes of affected corals. We therefore elucidated five unexplored/less-studied coral microbiomes, including those of Alcyonium acaule and Savalia savaglia , using 16S rDNA-amplicon sequencing-based profiling. Only the microbiome of Eunicella cavolini was found to be significantly different (p-value 0.6, p-value