Soil inhabiting Nemafauna: Irreplaceable organisms in enhancing soil fertility

Abstract

An opportunistic survey was conducted in the state of Goa, to study the importance of nemafauna in enhancing the soil fertility, from August 2011 to December 2011, August 2012 to December 2012 and from August 2013 to December 2013. For the present study 75 soil samples were collected from various landscapes, covering all the 12 talukas of the state. Permanent slides were prepared after extraction of nematodes using Cobb's decanting and sieving method and modified Baermann's Funnel method. The study resulted in recording 62 species belonging to 8 orders. Most of the species were predators predating on other nematodes mostly on those that are parasites of plants; also on other parasites of plants. These were from the soil samples collected from agricultural and paddy fields. Species diversity was more in the soil samples collected from landscapes where local manure was used for the fertilization of soil.