The investigators deployed four free-vehicle Bone-Wood Landers (BOWLs) as moorings that (1) sink autonomously to the deep-sea floor, (2) expose 9 controlled experimental substrates of whale bone, wood, or inert materials at the seafloor for months to years, and (3) upon acoustic command, enclose each experimental substrate in a sealed 500-micrometer mesh bag and returns to the ocean surface. This new BOWL technology allows controlled quantitative study of biotic colonization, biodiversity, ecosystem function and connectivity for bone, wood and other experimental substrates in the deep sea at relatively low fabrication and ship-time costs.
Genomic methods:
RAD_seq = This is 2b-RAD Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) data collected with the Wang et al. 2012 protocol. The raw reads will be deposited in NCBI Small Read Archive. The data is Illumina SE 50bp data.
mt_genome = This is Illumina PE 150bp data derive from total genomic DNA extracted from the organisms listed in the spreadsheet. The raw reads will be deposited in NCBI Small Read Archive and the assembled mitochondrial genome will be submitted to NCBI GenBank.
Endosymbiont_genome = This is Illumina PE 150bp data derive from total genomic DNA extracted from the organisms listed in the spreadsheet. The raw reads will be deposited in NCBI Small Read Archive and the assembled endosymbiont genome will be submitted to NCBI GenBank.