Nematoda functional ecology
The maturity index calculated from classified Nematoda genera showed no difference between High OC and Low OC stations (1.9 ± 0.1 maturity index for all samples, One-Way ANOVA test, Supplementary Data 6). Considering that values closer to one indicate habitat colonizers (and values closer to five indicate habitat persisters) the nematode communities in this study are considered colonizers. Looking closer at the classified feeding type of the nematodes the Genera classified as non-selective deposit feeders (1B, following the classification systems by Wieser (1953)) had a higher number of reads in the High OC stations when compared to Low OC (log2 fold change 1.79, DESeq2 analysis, false discovery rate (FDR ) = 0.0000000000018; Figure 6). In contrast, the Low OC stations had more genera classified as selective deposit feeders (1A, log2 fold change 1.62) and predator/omnivores (2B, log2 fold change 1.40) (FDR = 0.000012 and FDR = 0.010, respectively; Figure 6). A full list of all maturity index and feeding type classifications and their relative abundance per Nematodagenera is available in Supplementary Data 6.