The Effect of Botanicals with Nematicidal Activity on the Structural and Functional Characteristics of the Soil Nematode Community

Nikolaos Monokrousos, Maria D. Argyropoulou, Kalliopi Tzani, Urania Menkissoglou-Spiroudi, George Boutsis, Trifone D’Addabbo and Nikoletta Ntalli
Additional contact information
Nikolaos Monokrousos: University Center of International Programmes of Studies, International Hellenic University, 57001 Thessaloniki, Greece
Maria D. Argyropoulou: Department of Zoology, School of Biology, Faculty of Science, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
Kalliopi Tzani: Benaki Phytopathological Institute, 8 S. Delta Str., Department of Pesticides’ Control and Phytopharmacy, 14561 Athens, Greece
Urania Menkissoglou-Spiroudi: Pesticide Science Laboratory, Faculty of Agriculture Forestry and Natural Environment, School of Agriculture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
George Boutsis: Department of Zoology, School of Biology, Faculty of Science, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
Trifone D’Addabbo: Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection, CNR, Via Giovanni Amendola 122/d, 70126 Bari, Italy
Nikoletta Ntalli: Benaki Phytopathological Institute, 8 S. Delta Str., Department of Pesticides’ Control and Phytopharmacy, 14561 Athens, Greece

Agriculture, 2021, vol. 11, issue 4, 1-12

Abstract: We investigated the effects of three botanicals with nematicidal properties (anise- Pimpinella anisum , parsley- Petroselinum crispum, and rocket- Eruca sativa ) on the soil nematode community, in terms of trophic structure and nematode genera composition. We compared effects with those of fluopyram (synthetic nematicide) and Nemagold (bionematicide). We assessed the role of time, by sampling 15 and 45 days after treatments and analyzing nematode genera and microbial phospholipid fatty acid biomarkers (PLFA). Soil incorporation of botanicals reduced plant parasitic nematodes, increased bacterivores, especially the enrichment opportunists and among them Rhabditis , having no effect on fungivores and non-parasitic plant feeders. Neither the number nor the composition and dominance hierarchy of nematode genera were affected. Nemagold did not induce any significant change, while fluopyram decreased both free-living and parasitic nematodes, but with no uniform effect against all genera. The least affected genus was the fungivorous Aphelenchus . While most microbial PLFAs increased with time, the abundances of nematode genera did not change, except the Meloidogyne incognita second stage juveniles, which emerged in soil only 45 days after treatments. The low enrichment index and high channel index values of the fluopyram soil samples indicated a stressful environment. The opposite was observed in the botanical treatments, especially parsley and rocket.

Keywords: bacterial feeding nematodes; fungal feeding nematodes; Meloidogyne incognita; nematode community indices; PLFA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/11/4/326/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/11/4/326/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:11:y:2021:i:4:p:326-:d:531617

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().