Metatranscriptome of a marine bacterioplankton in the North Sea assessed by total RNA sequencing

Marine metatranscriptome data was generated as part of a more detailed study investigating the bacterioplankton communities towards the end of a diatom-dominated spring phytoplankton bloom. This genomic resource article reports a metatranscriptomic dataset from amidst the winter time prior the occurrence of the spring diatom bloom. Up to 58% of all sequences could be assigned onto ORFs and taxonomic analysis based on expressed 16S rDNA revealed identified Gammaproteobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria and to a lesser extend Flavobacteria as the most active community members.