Microbial Benthic Communities in the Aegean Sea

The Aegean Sea, as part of the Mediterranean, is an ecologically and geologically diverse marine system, with a wide range of habitats including coastal and deep-sea oxic sediments, and submarine volcanoes with seafloor hydrothermal vents and CO2-venting active, and inactive, polymetallic (Au, Ag, Sb, Cu, Pb, Zn) hydrothermal chimneys. Generally, our knowledge regarding microbial community composition and function in the benthic layers such as the sediments and hydrothermal vents of the Aegean Sea is limited. Here, we summarize our current knowledge on benthic microbial communities in diverse marine habitats of the Aegean Sea. Data based on sequencing technologies, such as Sanger-based clone libraries, pyrosequencing, and Illumina sequencing are presented.