COMMUNITY STRUCTURE OF SOIL NEMATODES ASSOCIATED WITH THE RHIZOSPHERE OF SOLANUM LYCOPERSICUM IN A MAJOR PRODUCTION AREA IN ARGENTINA: A CASE STUDY AMONG AGROECOSYSTEM TYPES

SALAS AUGUSTO; ACHINELLY , MARÍA F.,

Journal of Soil Science and plant Nutrition

springer

Año: 2019

0718-9508

The objective of this work was to describe the status of the assemblages of soil nematodes associated to tomato crops, in a major tomato production area in Argentina, by studying ecological indices of nematode food webs to determine those that best describe the alterations suffered in horticultural soils. and determining which indexes describe alterations in horticultural soils. Three agroecosystem types were compared: agroecological, conventional with organic amendments, conventional with methyl bromide (MeBr) application. A pristine site without anthropogenic intervention was also studied. Abundance, frequency, diversity indices, maturity indices, trophic groups, colonizer-persister values (cp), and guilds of nematodes were analyzed and compared statistically between the sampling sites. The most abundant genera in the agroecosystems were Rhabditis, Helicotylenchus and Filenchus belonging to the guilds bacterivorous (Ba1), plant feeders (Pl3) and fungivores (Fu2). Within agroecosystems the agroecological site showed the highest values of diversity and maturity, while the lowest values were found in the site treated with MeBr. Trophic groups, cp, guilds and the indices provided useful information on the state of maturity and enrichment that effectively contrasted and differentiated the practices of horticultural management. This updated report of the nematode fauna constitutes one of the most important for the horticultural region of La Plata considering the scarcity of studies on this subject.