The Role of Free Living Nematode Population in the Organic Matter Recycling

Abstract

Organic matter as truly the key to soil fertility and health. Free-living nematodes play important roles in soil nutrient cycling. Nematode excretion may have contributed soluble nitrogen in soil. Nematodes have more C: N ratio and lower N content as compare with the bacteria C: N ratio they consume. Growth efficiency of nematodes is smaller than those of the bacteria. Nitrogen mineralization, abundance of many free-living nematodes populations in soil mainly bacterivorous, omnivorous, and predatory nematodes. They were also found to correlate with concentrations of many other soil nutrients in a fallow land. Bacterial grazers protozoa and bacterivorous nematodes contributed more of the nitrogen mineralized by fauna, which was as compared with the mineralized by microbes. In the soil, nematodes have a function to decrease the remains of larger animals and plant tissues. Under field conditions, bacterivorous and predatory nematodes are contributed directly and indirectly about for the nitrogen mineralization in conventional and integrated farming systems, respectively. Predatory nematodes also regulate nitrogen mineralization by feeding on microbial grazing nematodes, a conduit by which resources pass from bottom to top trophic levels.