Standards in Genomic Sciences (2010) 3:183-193 DOI:10.4056/sigs.1202536 The Genomic Standards Consortium Metagenomes and metatranscriptomes from the L4 long-term coastal monitoring station in the Western English Channel

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 struc-ture 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 differ-ences 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