ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Li-Mei Zhang1,2, Xue-Ping Zhang1 and Li-Min Zhang1
1Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Monitoring of Geographic Environment, College
of Heilongjiang Province, Harbin Normal University, Harbin – 150025, China.
2School of History, Culture and Tourism, Heilongjiang University, Harbin – 150080, China.
J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2014;8(Spl. Edn. 1):433-442
© The Author(s). 2014
Received: 12/04/2014 | Accepted: 09/05/2014 | Published: 31/05/2014
Abstract

The effect of human trampling on soil nematode community were studied along  an increasing distance from the trail of Wudalianchi World Geo-park which is located in Northeast China. It can provide valuable information about the impacts of human disturbances on ecosystem structure. Our study evaluated the abundance, the composition and the ecological indicators of soil nematode communities in three different trampling intensity (severely disturbance, moderately disturbance, slightly disturbance). Soil samples were collected from the depth of 0 cm to 20 cm in 2013. Soil nematode were separated using the Baermann’s funnels method, and were identified and counted. Soil pH value, soil moisture, soil bulk density, organic matter, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, available phosphorus content, and available potassium content were measured in topsoil (0-20 cm) from each site. Sixty-one nematode genera were collected during this study. Trampling decreased the abundance of the total nematode and four tropic groups, and affected the frequency of occurrence of some species. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) indicated that the soil nematode trophic group distribution related to soil properties closely. Tramping increased soil bulk density, reduced soil moisture content, and decreased soil nutrient supply. Therefore, it lead to changes of soil nematode community. The severely trampling site had the lowest the abundance MI 2-5, EI and SI, and the highest BI and CI, which indicates a serious interference to the environment. Our results show human traffic can affect soil biota significantly in this ecosystem and may alter ecosystem processes. Consequently, soil nematode community analysis may provide useful information for assessing the impact of human foot traffic on soil processes.

Keywords

Tourism disturbance, Nematodes, Ecological functions, Community structure

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© The Author(s) 2014. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.