2.1 | Zooplankton community sample collection and
preservation
Zooplankton community samples were collected from plankton trawls in
coral reef areas around Green Island, Taiwan. The samplings were carried
out along two transects, one on the island’s southern side and the other
on its western side (Figure 1). Sample collection was performed twice a
day: once during the day (approx. 10:00-12:00) and once at night
(18:00-20:00). The specific GPS locations and sampling times are
available in Table S1. A plankton net with a mouth opening of 45 cm in
diameter and mesh size of 63 µm (NORPAC net, Rigosha & Co., Ltd,
Saitama, Japan) was used for the sampling. For each sampling event, the
net was towed at the sea surface for 10 minutes with the slowest
operational speed of the boat. The plankton net was washed with fresh
water after use to ensure that no sample carry-over occurred between
collections. The collected zooplankton were kept alive in aerated tanks
(5 litres of filtered surface water) during transportation back to the
Marine Science Centre, Green Island Research Station, Academia Sinica,
Taiwan. All samples were brought to the laboratory within 2 hours of the
collection.
In the laboratory, the samples were size-fractionated into three size
ranges: F1: 63 – 100 µm, F2: 100 – 200 µm, and F3: 200 – 300 µm using
plankton meshes. After the size fractionation, the samples were weighed
and then homogenized with 10 times the volume of the TriPure Isolation
reagent (Roche, Base, Switzerland) and kept at - 20 °C until total RNA
extraction.