Survey of microbial populations within Lake Michigan nearshore waters at two Chicago public beaches

Lake Michigan is a critical resource for the residents of Chicago, providing drinking water to its 9+ million area residents. Along Chicago׳s 26 miles of public beaches the populous urban environment and this freshwater environment meet. While city-led monitoring initiatives investigate pathogenic bacteria in these nearshore waters, very little is known about other microbial species present. We collected surface water samples from two Chicago public beaches – Montrose Beach and 57th Street Beach – every ten days from June 5 through August 4, 2013 as well as once in early Fall (October 4, 2013). Sixteen bacterial communities in total were surveyed through targeted sequencing of the V4 16S rRNA gene. Taxa were identified using Mothur. Raw sequence data is available via NCBI׳s SRA database (part of BioProject PRJNA245802). OTU calls for each read are also available at our online repository: www.lakemichiganmicrobes.com/bacteria/.