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Abstract
Soil nematode faunal analysis is necessary to ascertain the health status of the soil ecosystem. Composite soil samples were taken at designated sites; A, B, C and D from the Makerere Hill area, Kampala and analyzed to characterize the nematode fauna status. Soil samples were collected vertically at 0-5 cm, 5-10 cm and 10-15 cm core depths with a 5 cm wide soil auger. A total of 7,900 nematodes were collected from the study out of which 1,720 (21.8%) nematodes came from 0-5 cm core depth, 5,270 (66.7) from 5-10 cm core depth and 910 (11.52) from the 10-15 cm core depth. Species diversity showed nine orders of nematodes comprising twenty four families and forty nine species. The Order; Tylenchida had eight families and twenty five species. The Dorylaimida had six families and eleven species, The Rhabditida had families and seven species. The orders; Enoplida, Desmoscolida, Monhysteriida, Chromadorida, Araeolaimida and Tetracephalida had only one family and species each. Nematode species richness and abundance were more in the sites located at the lower fringes of the hill, induced by inherent environmental characteristics that promoted organic enrichment of the soil. The top soil (0-5 cm core depth) comprised the bacterivores c-p 1 (Rhabditis spp.) and c-p 2 nematodes (Desmoscolecidae Spp.), the 5-10 cm core depth had a composite population of all the trophic guilds but dominated by specialist obligates (plant parasitic) while the wide host range obligates (Meloidogyne spp., Pratylenchus spp. and Tylenchus spp.) occurred at 10-15 cm core depth. There was a large assortment of specialist parasites; Aphelenchus spp., Aphelenchoides spp., Aphastimatylenchus nigeriennsis and Trichodorus spp., occasioned by vegetation characteristics of the study area. The study area is a compendium of divergent habitats with peculiar ecomorphological characteristics that can serve as a reference in future environmental impact evaluation studies in relation to soil nematode faunal integrity in Uganda. Key words: Soil nematodes, species diversity, abundance, bacteriovores, specialist obligates, ecomorpological characteristics.
Highlights
The nematodes are ubiquitous in both aquatic and terrestrial environments; a characteristic that makes them very significant biological agents in the assessment and evaluation of the environment (Heip et al, 1985; Traunspurger, 2002; Manzanilla and Hunt 2004; Traunspunger, 2002; Nzeako et al, 2014; Hagerbaumer, et al, 2015 and Nzeako et al, 2016)
Assessments of the physicochemical parameters in the study were restricted to the pH, % organic matter (OM) and soil aggregates of the sampling stations
The mean pH values oscillated between recorded values for forest soil and humid arable soil types based on the reports of McCauley et al (2017)
Summary
The nematodes are ubiquitous in both aquatic and terrestrial environments; a characteristic that makes them very significant biological agents in the assessment and evaluation of the environment (Heip et al, 1985; Traunspurger, 2002; Manzanilla and Hunt 2004; Traunspunger, 2002; Nzeako et al, 2014; Hagerbaumer, et al, 2015 and Nzeako et al, 2016). The abundance or scarcity of nematodes in any natural aquatic or terrestrial environment is an index of the health status of such environment (Heip et al, 2000; Ferris and Benelman, 2003; Cesarz et al, 2015). The close relationship between soil characteristics and nematode abundance in various functional guilds could be exploited in developing a universal standard for evaluating the faunal integrity of an ecosystem (Fiscus and Neher, 2002; Nzeako et al, 2014; Angaye et al, 2015a)
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