Freshwater and brackish metagenomes from lakes in Australia

This study describes the microbial communities of eight different lakes or reservoirs in Queensland, Australia using high throughput metagenomic sequencing with long- and short read technologies (Oxford Nanopore and Illumina). Water samples were taken from the surface or mid-water column (0.5-5 m depth, and additionally from 15 m depths for Samsonvale), at the deepest part of Lakes Samsonvale, Wivenhoe, Baroon, Monduran, Boomanjin, McKenzie, Wabby, and Cootharabra. 0.25-10 L of water were prefiltered through a plankton net (20 µm) and a 5-µm filter and then filtered onto polysulfone filters with a pore size of 0.22 µm until filters were clogged. DNA was extracted from the 0.22 µm filter (small, planktonic fraction) to obtain genomic DNA of the microbial community.