I just got my RNA seq data.

CZ1_S6_L001_R1_001.fastq

CZ1_S6_L002_R1_001.fastq

CZ1_S6_L003_R1_001.fastq

CZ1_S6_L004_R1_001.fastq

I only know there are from 4 different lanes during sequencing.

What are they and do I need to combine these fastq files into one? And how?

Thanks~~~
You first might want to QC your data lane by lane to compare lane effects.

Based on the filenames I get the idea your data is single ended? In that case you can just concatenate the files for downstream analysis.

e.g. 

    cat CZ1_S6_L001_R1_001.fastq CZ1_S6_L002_R1_001.fastq CZ1_S6_L003_R1_001.fastq CZ1_S6_L004_R1_001.fastq > CZ1_S6_merged_R1_001.fastq