Diplostomidae diversity in Eurasian perch and commom roach mtDNA COX1 gene NGS sequencing

We studied the diplostomidae communities in Eurasian perch and common roach collected at seven lakes in Estonia using a cost-effective COX1 region-specific metabarcoding approach. We hypothesised that parasite communities will differ between host species and lakes. Our results revealed that lake, site within the lake, and host species all are important factors influencing the composition of diplostomid communities. The characterization of sympatric host species revealed that roach generally harbored more diverse parasite communities than perch. Additionally, we detected five positive and one negative diplostomid species associations in roach, while only a single negative association was observed in perch.