The community of Marine Alveolate parasites in the Atlantic inflow to the Arctic Ocean is structured by season, depth and water mass

Abstract

The marine alveolates (MALVs) are a highly diverse group of parasitic dinoflagellates, which may regulate populations of a wide range of hosts, including other dinoflagellates, copepods and fish eggs. Knowledge on their distribution and ecological role is still limited, as they are difficult to study with morphological methods. In this work, we describe the taxonomic composition, seasonal- and depth distribution of MALVs in the Arctic Ocean west and north of Svalbard, based on metabarcoding data from five cruises. We recovered amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) representing all major groups previously described from environmental sequencing studies (Dino-Groups I-V), with Dino-Groups I and II being the most diverse. The community was structured by season, depth, and water mass. In the epipelagic zone, the taxonomic composition varied strongly by season, however there was also a difference between Arctic and Atlantic water masses in winter. The spring and summer epipelagic communities were characterized by a few dominating ASVs, which were present in low proportions during winter and in mesopelagic summer samples, suggesting that they proliferate under certain conditions, e.g., when specific hosts are abundant. The mesopelagic samples were more similar across sampling months, and may harbor parasites of deep-dwelling organisms, little affected by season.