NEMATODE COMMUNITY STRUCTURE UNDER COMPOST AND CHEMICAL FERTILIZER MANAGEMENT PRACTICE, IN THE NORTH CHINA PLAIN

A long-term field experiment was conducted at the Qu-Zhou experimental station, China Agricultural University to study how the nematode community structure was influenced by compost and chemical fertilizer; using no amendment as the control. Soil samples were; collected from 0-10 cm and 10-20 cm depths. The different treatments led to a significant. difference in the total number of nematodes, bacterivores, plant parasites, omnivores-predators and nematode richness. The total number of nematodes, bacterivores, omnivores-predators and nematode. richness were found to decrease in chemical fertilizer-treated plots. Although plant parasites were more abundant under compost treatment than under chemical fertilization, the relative abundance of plant parasites in the compost-treated plots was smaller. The application of chemical fertilizer decreased the number of genera of bacterivores and omnivores-predators. The numbers of total nematodes, bacterivores, plant parasites and omnivores-predators were significantly positively correlated with the contents of total organic carbon, total N, alkali-hydrolysable N, available P and available K. The compost-treated plots tended to have a greater diversity of nematodes than chemical fertilizer treated plots, so there was a healthy soil ecosystem under compost treatment.