Temporal variability and ecological interactions of Syndiniales parasites within coastal protist communities of the Skidaway River Estuary (GA, USA)

Syndiniales are a ubiquitous and diverse group of protist parasites that have been found to infect a range of other protists, especially dinoflagellates. To better understand the temporal dynamics of Syndiniales and their host range and specificity, we employed weekly sampling of the protist community over a full year in a subtropical estuary. Amplicon sequencing (18S rRNA) revealed strong temporal variability in Syndiniales and co-occurrence networks constructed from relative abundance data provided insight into parasite-host interactions.