Differences in Ciliophora community structure
Examples of Ciliophora genera that were significant along the OC gradient, included Cryptocaryon that had a higher relative abundance at the Low OC stations (17.4 ± 1.4 %) when compared to High OC (12.4 ± 1.4 % (% denote portion of Ciliophora community), Mann-Whitney U tests, U = 21, P = 0.018; Figure 5c). Instead, the genus Spirotrachelostyla had a higher relative abundance at High OC (2.9 ± 0.5 %) when compared to Low OC (0.8 ± 0.1 %, Mann-Whitney U test, U = 9, P = 0.00066; Figure 5c). A full list of taxonomic classifications and sequence counts for all three studied groups are available in Supplementary Data 5.