Microbiomes of Thalassia testudinum throughout the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico are influenced by site and region while maintaining a core microbiome

This work would not have been possible without the support of numerous technicians, students and volunteers who assisted in the field work associated with this project. Aaron John, Anna Safryghin, Jade Reinhart, Kasia Malinowski, Laura Woodlee, Matthew Speegle, Michael England, Sam Glew, and Trinitti Leon at the Andros site. Scott Alford, Theresa Gruninger, Audrey Looby, Cayla Sullivan, Sawyer Downey, Whitney Scheffel, Jamila Roth, and Tim Jones at the Crystal River site. This work was conducted under the following permits: at Belize under permit #0004-18 issued by the Belize Fisheries Department; at Panama under permit #s SE/AP-23-17 and SE/AO-1-19 issued by the Ministerio de Ambiente de la Republica de Panama; at Andros by permits issued by the Bahamas National Trust and the Bahamas Environment, Science and Technology Commission. This is contribution #1686 from the Coastlines and Oceans Division of the Institute of Environment at Florida International University.r The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by the US National Science Foundation (OCE-1737247 to JC, AA, and VP, OCE-2019022 to JC, OCE-1737144 to KH, and OCE-1737116 to JD).