Metagenomes and metatranscriptomes from the L4 long-term coastal monitoring station in the Western English Channel

Jack A. Gilbert, Folker Meyer, Lynn Schriml, Ian R. Joint, Martin Mühling, Dawn Field

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.