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Nematodes as bioindicators of soil degradation due to heavy metals

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Abstract

The effect of distance from a heavy metal pollution source on the soil nematode community was investigated on four sampling sites along an 4 km transect originating at the Kovohuty a.s. Krompachy (pollution source). The soil nematode communities were exposed to heavy metal influence directly and through soil properties changes. We quantified the relative effects of total and mobile fraction of metals (As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb, and Zn) on soil ecosystem using the nematode community structure (trophic and c-p groups,) and ecological indices (Richness of genera, H′, MI2-5, etc.). Pollution effects on the community structure of soil free living nematodes was found to be the highest near the pollution source, with relatively low population density and domination of insensitive taxa. A decrease in heavy metals contents along the transect was linked with an increase in complexity of nematode community. The majority of used indices (MI2-5, SI, H′) negatively correlated (P < 0.05 or P < 0.01) with heavy metals content and were sensitive to soil ecosystem disturbance. Contamination by heavy metals has negatively affected the soil environment, which resulted in nematode community structure and ecological indices changes. Results showed that the free-living nematodes are useful tools for bioindication of contamination and could be used as an alternative to the common approaches based on chemical methods.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the support of the Slovak Research Development Agency (project LPP-0085-09) (0.6), VEGA (Grant No. 2/0136/10), (0.1) and project “Application Centre to protect humans, animals and plants against parasites” (Code ITMS: 26220220018) based on the support of the Operational Program “Research and Development funded from the European Regional Development Found (0.3). Special thanks are also due to RN Dr. Lívia Farkašová for her kind help with soil samples analysis and Dr. Nicola Sasanelli for valuable advice.

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  1. Institute of Parasitology, SAS, Hlinkova 3, 04001, Košice, Slovak Republic

    Peter Šalamún, Marek Renčo, Tímea Brázová, Ingrid Papajová, Dana Miklisová & Vladimíra Hanzelová

  2. Faculty of Metallurgy, Technical University of Košice, Letná 9, 04200, Košice, Slovak Republic

    Eva Kucanová

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  1. Peter Šalamún
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Šalamún, P., Renčo, M., Kucanová, E. et al. Nematodes as bioindicators of soil degradation due to heavy metals. Ecotoxicology 21, 2319–2330 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-012-0988-y

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