NEMATODE COMMUNITIES DISTRIBUTE IN SEDIMENT PROFILE OF THE RIVER BED

Abstract

Free living nematodes in the estuarine ecosystem have been studied worldwide as well as in Vietnam. However, so far no study on characteristics of nematode communities characteristics distribute in sediment profile in high accumulation of organic deposition of the riverbed in the condition of lack of water exchange due to damming. This study aims to investigate how nematodes’ communities variables such as diversity, sex and feeding structure alter in different 5 layers of sediment deep profile of the river bed. Our studies found for the first time that nematodes’ communities not only stay on 10 cm first layers but they can contribute until 50 cm deep in the sediment profile of the river bed. They have good a ability to adapt to the condition of sediment deep, with lower densities in comparison to the first 10cm top layers but they are still quite high diversity. However, our study also recognized that there was not a clear difference in other communities’ charactersitics such as the number of species, sex structure and feeding types in 5 sediment deep profiles.