Intermittent ponds of the New Jersey Pinelands are valuable ecosystems that support a diverse array of organisms including protists that play key roles in nutrient cycling and energy transfer within food webs. We used 18S-V9 DNA metabarcoding to explore protistan assemblages and their variation along a human-impact gradient in 30 natural and man-made Pinelands ponds. Heterotrophic protists were more diverse and abundant than p...