Surface water 16S rRNA gene amplicons from the NSERC Canadian Lake Pulse Network
To survey the bacterial diversity in Canadian lakes, a fragment of the 16S rRNA gene V4 region was amplified using the universal primer set 515F (5'-GTGCCAGCMGCCGCGGTAA-3') and 806R (5'-GGACTACHVGGGTWTCTAAT-3') from DNA sampled from the surface waters of >200 lakes (filtered between 0.22 to 100 µm).