Impact of an Introduced C4 Plant On the Nematode Community Structure of Three "Old Field" Communities

Berney, M.F., G.W.Bird, and W.L.Goodfriend

Presented at the All Scientist Meeting (1999-07-20 to 1999-07-21 )

Andropogon gerardi, a deep rooted C4 bunch grass was transplanted to three “old field” successional sites at the Kelog Biological Station.Five years after establishment, samples were taken from the rhizosphere of the Andropogon and the nearby successional community. Sampling was at plant senesence. Six replicates were taken at each of three sites. Nematodes were extracted from soil using the Baerman funnel technique. They were identified to genus, and assigned to life history groups; plant parasite, plant associate, fungal feeder, bacterial feeder, algal feeder, omnivore and carnivore. Several measures of community structure were applied to the resulting data. There were no consistent treatment differences across all three sites. The three sites showed differences in the ratio of Fungivore to bacterivore nematodes, in descending order:Lower Louden, Turkey and McKay. This is consistent with the phospholipid fatty acid marker data from the same samples. At Lower Louden the greatest difference between treatments for fungivore / bacterivore nematode ratio was measured, with the Successional treatment > Andropogon (P<=0.10). There were no significant differences for this measure at the other two locations. There were other site specific differences in nematode community structure by treatment. None were consistent across all sites.

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