MERP: Jelly and larval fish diet analysis using whole organism 18S metabarcoding

As part of the Marine Ecosystems Research Programme funded by Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) this project aimed to address questions relating to the state of food webs (or their components) in relation to specified targets.Gelatinous zooplankton and larval fish samples were collected during cruises using a 500 uM plankton net. Concomitantly plankton diversity samples were collected using a 200 uM bongo net. Gelatinous zooplankton and larval fish samples were sorted, washed and ID'd prior to DNA extraction and amplification of V9 region of the 18S rRNA using the earth microbiome protocol to decipher prey preferences. The project aimed to determine firstly whether gelatinous zooplankton and larval fish displayed selective feeding preferences, and secondly whether there was any overlap between the prey items identified for each taxonomic group to enable inference of ecological impacts of gelatinous zooplankton bloom events. These data may be copied, published, distributed, transmitted and adapted to be exploited commercially and non-commercially, with acknowledgment of Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) as the data originator, in line with version 3 of the UK Open Government Licence (OGL) (https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/).