Metatranscriptome of marine bacterioplankton during winter time in the North Sea assessed by total RNA sequencing

Marine metatranscriptome data was generated as part of a study investigating the bacterioplankton communities towards the end of a diatom-dominated spring phytoplankton bloom. This genomic resource article reports a metatranscriptomic dataset from amidst the winter time prior to the occurrence of the spring diatom bloom. Up to 58% of all sequences could be assigned to predicted genes. Taxonomic analysis based on expressed 16S ribosomal RNA genes identified Alphaproteobacteria and Gammaproteobacteria as the most active community members.