Effects of different soil management practices on soil free-living nematode community structure, Eastern China

An investigation was conducted in a Shouguang agroecosystem, Shandong Province, Eastern China, in order to determine the long-term (10-15 yr) disturbances of three different agricultural management practices. In this study, the main focus was on free-living soil nematodes, as a tool which will help differentiate between treatments according to their sensitivity to physical, chemical, and biota composition. In this study, three treatments were implemented in each of a total of four investigated sites: greenhouses, conventional farmlands, and fallows. Diversity, maturity (MI) and weight indices were used to assess the nematode community. The results indicated that greenhouses have a lower richness (SR), diversity, modified maturity index (Sigma MI), modified maturity index for all nematodes with c-p =2-5 [Sigma MI (2-5)], plant parasite index (PPI), PPI/MI values, and fungi-feeding/bacteria-feeding (F/B) ratio, as well as lower basal index (BI) and channel index (CI) and higher dominance. These results elucidated the difference between the three treatments, where the greenhouses were an enriched disturbed system compared with the other treatments and were dominated by bacterivorous nematodes, the fallows were a relatively infertile and stable system dominated by plant parasites, and the conventional farmlands can be positioned between the above two treatments.