Data from: Sommer SA, Van Woudenberg L, Lenz PH, Cepeda G, Goetze E (in review) Vertical gradients in species richness and community composition across the twilight zone in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre

Abstract

This dataset consists of metabarcoding data for the zooplankton community in the epipelagic, mesopelagic and upper bathypelagic zones (0-1500m) of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. The goal of this study was to assess the hidden diversity present in zooplankton assemblages in midwaters, and detect vertical gradients in species richness, depth distributions, and community composition of the full zooplankton assemblage. Samples were collected in June 2014 from Station ALOHA (22.75,-158.00) using a 1-meter square Multiple Opening and Closing Nets and Environmental Sampling System (MOCNESS, 200um mesh). Next generation sequence data (Illumina MiSeq, V3 chemistry, 300-bp paired-end) of the zooplankton assemblage derive from amplicons of the V1-V2 region of 18S rRNA (primers described in Fonseca et al. 2010). These data include raw sequences and read count abundance information for molecular OTUs from both holoplanktonic and meroplanktonic taxa.