Zooplankton COI metabarcoding in Prince William Sound

This BioProject contains raw sequence data generated for the study, "Scales of variation in zooplankton communities and monitoring for species of concern in southcentral Alaska" in the ICES Journal of Marine Sciences. The primary goal was to use DNA metabarcoding of plankton samples to analyze the richness and composition of zooplankton communities in Prince William Sound (PWS). The study also evaluated the effectiveness of plankton surveys as an early detection tool for species of concern. Sampling across PWS evaluated variation linked to time of sampling (year, month, week), tidal cycle, time of day, and location. Raw sequence data were generated using the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I gene as the target marker. The results showed that seasonality was the strongest factor influencing community composition, driven primarily by differences in meroplankton groups, which peaked in April and May. The raw reads provided here support these findings and underscore the utility of plankton surveys for broad-scale ecological monitoring.