Nematodes of Loktak Lake, the Only Ramsar Site in Northeastern India. Physicochemical Properties of Soil and Water and First Report on Diversity and Community Analysis of Nematodes

Physical and chemical properties of soil, water and the floating mats of Loktak Lake, Manipur, India was studied. Generic diversity and community analysis of nematodes of different feeding habits were also done. Water temperature did not experience both extremities. Water transparency was low; pH was slightly acidic, DO and BOD ranged from positive to negative. Nutrient content was usually low. Nematodes were fairly diverse with 35 genera belonging to different trophic groups. The high density and low generic diversity of fungivores is difficult to be explained. Bacterivores were the most frequent while fungivores were the least. As an individual, Helicotylenchus was the densest and the most prominent. In case of biomass and relative mean biomass bacteriovores were preponderant over other groups. In the whole nematode community Pelodera was found to be having the maximum mean biomass and importance value.