RNA data of an indoor mesocosm experiment testing temperature effects on a plankton community from Helgoland Roads in March 2022

To investigate the effect of temperature on a North Sea spring bloom community, we performed an incubation experiment in the mesocosm facility of the Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM) in Wilhelmshaven. The plankton community was sampled from the long-term ecological research station Helgoland Roads (https://deims.org/1e96ef9b-0915-4661-849f-b3a72f5aa9b1) on the 6th of March, 2022. Collection of the surface community was conducted from the RV Heincke with a pipe covered with a 200 µm net that was attached to a diaphragm pump. The month-long incubation was started on the 7th of March in twelve indoor mesocosms, the Planktotrons (Gall et al. (2017)). We chose three temperatures along the ascending part of the thermal performance curve (TPC) of the in situ community: the minimum temperature for positive growth (6°C, also the field temperature), the middle between the minimum and the optimum temperature (12 °C), and the optimum temperature for growth (18 °C). Ramping up the temperatures was conducted by 1 °C per day until the treatment temperatures were reached, resulting in a ramp phase (first twelve days) and an constant temperature phase. This dataset comprises the RNA data sampled during the experiment. The mesocosm water was generally filtered over a 200 µm mesh before sampling to exclude mesozooplankton. Samples for RNA were taken at the start (t0), after 9 (t3), 15 (t5), 21 (t7), and 27 (t9) days of incubation. To this end, 250 mL of sample were filtered onto a 3/5 µm and 0.8 µm filter successively and both were added to 1mL of Trizol within maximum 15 minutes of sampling from the Planktotron and directly put on -80 °C. Afterwards, the RNA was extracted as described in Wohlrab et al. 2017 (doi: 10.1186/s12898-017-0119-y). This dataset is linked to the 18S-metabarcoding dataset https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/browser/view/PRJEB72441 and the datasets TPC data can be downloaded from https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.961508 and https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.961155. A more detailed description of the experiment can be found in the publication https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.171971.