Metabaroding of marine zooplankton from station ALOHA (North Pacific Subtropical Gyre). Marine zooplankton

These metabarcoding data were collected from bulk marine zooplankton samples at station ALOHA in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. Plankton from 9 depth strata were quantitatively split, and size-fractionated into 0.2-0.5m, 0.5-1.0mm, and 1.0-2.0mm size fractions. DNA was extracted in bulk, followed by PCR and amplicon sequencing of a ~ 356-bp fragment of the V1-V2 region of 18S rRNA (Fonseca et al. 2010 primers). The objectives of the study were to (i) assess the potential magnitude of undescribed metazoan diversity in poorly-characterized midwater habitats, (ii) detect distinct faunal assemblages and identify important faunal boundaries across depth in the twilight zone, (iii) identify suites of species that maximally distinguish these faunal assemblages, and (iv) test the expectation of a mesopelagic maximum in species richness for the full zooplankton assemblage using a metabarcoding approach.

本数据集的元条形码测序（metabarcoding）数据采集自北太平洋副热带环流ALOHA站的批量海洋浮游动物样本。研究人员对9个深度层的浮游动物进行定量分装，并按粒径分级为0.2-0.5m、0.5-1.0mm及1.0-2.0mm三个粒径组分。对上述组分批量提取DNA后，针对18S核糖体RNA（rRNA）V1-V2区约356碱基对的片段开展聚合酶链式反应（PCR）及扩增子测序，所用引物为Fonseca等人2010年开发的引物。本研究的目标为：(i) 评估特征研究匮乏的中层生境中未被描述的后生动物多样性的潜在规模；(ii) 探测暮光带内不同的动物群落，并识别深度梯度上重要的群落分界；(iii) 筛选可最大程度区分上述动物群落的物种组合；(iv) 采用元条形码测序方法，检验“全浮游动物群落的物种丰富度在中层水域达到峰值”这一预设假设。