Seasonal changes of genomics in sandy sediments at Svalbard

Svalbard is one of the most extreme environments on Earth with permanently low temperatures and almost 4 months of darkness. Surface sediments (0-2 cm depth) was sampled in Isfjorden. Two stations within 1 km distance were visited in December 2017, February 2018, May 2018, December 2018 and April 2019. To investigate seasonal changes in genomic potential and transcription of the communities, metagenomes and metatranscriptomes from total DNA and RNA were sequenced. One stations RNA was sequenced a second time after removing bacterial 16S rRNA, to improve sequencing depth of mRNA.