RNA-seq of eukaryotic plankton community
Plankton biomass from seawater was collected from shipboard incubation experiments and in situ samples during  the Export Processes in the Ocean from RemoTe Sensing (EXPORTS) North Pacific field campaign. Seawater samples were per-filtered using 153um mesh and collected on 47mm 5m filters. Shipboard incubations included a long-term (8 day) nutrient stress experiment where all required nutrients were amended except for silicon, and a short term (24 h) nutrient amendment experiment where iron was added. Water for experiments was collected from the surface using a trace metal clean method. In situ samples were collected from 40% PAR using a trace metal clean rosette. Total RNA was extracted using the Qiagen RNeasy mini kit with added bead beating and DNase steps, which was then sequenced by Genewiz. Ribodepletion was performed on long-term incubation samples to remove rRNA while retaining eukaryotic plastid and genomic mRNA. PolyA selection was performed on short-term and in situ samples to bias results towards eukaryotic mRNA.