The Sorcerer II Global Ocean Sampling Expedition: Northwest Atlantic through Eastern Tropical Pacific

The world's oceans contain a complex mixture of micro-organisms that are for the most part, uncharacterized both genetically and biochemically. We report here a metagenomic study of the marine planktonic microbiota in which surface (mostly marine) water samples were analyzed as part of the Sorcerer II Global Ocean Sampling expedition. These samples, collected across a several-thousand km transect from the North Atlantic through the Panama Canal and ending in the South Pacific yielded an extensive dataset consisting of 7.7 million sequencing reads (6.3 billion bp). Though a few major microbial clades dominate the planktonic marine niche, the dataset contains great diversity with 85% of the assembled sequence…

• SI
  Smithsonian Institution
• UD
  U.S. Department of Energy

  Awards: DE-FG02-, FG02-02ER63453, DE-FG02
• UD
  U.S. Department of State
• GA
  Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
• PU
  Princeton University
• SR
  Sight Research UK

  Award: pml010007
• UD
  Universidad de Costa Rica
• UO
  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• OO
  Office of Science
• NP
  National Park Service
• ST
  Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
• NE
  Natural Environment Research Council

  Award: pml010007
• BA
  Biological and Environmental Research