Abstract
Both metagenomic data and metatranscriptomic data were collected from surface water (0-2m) of the L4 sampling station (50.2518 N, 4.2089 W), which is part of the Western Channel Observatory long-term coastal-marine monitoring station. We previously generated from this area a six-year time series of 16S rRNA V6 data, which demonstrated robust seasonal structure for the bacterial community, with diversity correlated with day length. Here we describe the features of these metagenomes and metatranscriptomes. We generated 8 metagenomes (4.5 million sequences, 1.9 Gbp, average read-length 350 bp) and 7 metatranscriptomes (392,632 putative mRNA-derived sequences, 159 Mbp, average read-length 272 bp) for eight time-points sampled in 2008. These time points represent three seasons (winter, spring, and summer) and include both day and night samples. These data demonstrate the major differences between genetic potential and actuality, whereby genomes follow general seasonal trends yet with surprisingly little change in the functional potential over time; transcripts tended to be far more structured by changes occurring between day and night.
Highlights
The Western Channel Observatory station L4, located off the Plymouth coast in the UK, has been collecting environmental data for almost a century [1]
The metagenomic data shows an average similarity of less than 2%, clustered by season, from which one can infer that the seasonal differences are stronger than the diel differences
Metagenome project history Two factors motivated the choice of station L4: its century-long history of environmental data [7] and the six years of 16S rRNA V6 amplicon pyrosequencing information detailing microbial diversity patterns [2,3], from which we inferred interannual variability from our single-year study
Summary
The Western Channel Observatory station L4, located off the Plymouth coast in the UK, has been collecting environmental data for almost a century [1]. This includes published 16S rRNA V6 amplicon pyrosequencing data cataloging monthly patterns in microbial diversity [2,3]. The importance of the area rests with its being a transition zone between many northern and southern planktonic species [1] and with the fact that, as a major confluence between the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, water masses exhibit extremely short residence times (>2 months [4]; ). In the study reported here, we use shotgun metagenomics and metatranscriptomics to identify the relationship between genetic and functional diversity at station L4
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