Extent of variation in Hoplolaimus indicus Sher, 1963 II. Morphometric characters

A study of 22 different measurements and ratios generally used for nematode species' descriptions was conducted on eight hundred and eighty specimens of Hoplolaimus indicus collected from four different hosts (including type host-sugarcane) each from five different localities (including type locality-Karnal, Haryana, India) to work out the range, mean, S.D. and significance of difference (as indicated by ‘t’ value) between means of a particular character as observed in populations collected from the two hosts within any of the six possible pairs of hosts. It was found that (i) the range of variation of the 22 measurements and ratios studied was much more than that given by Sher 1963; (ii) mean values of all these characters may differ with (a) host within the same locality, (b) locality when the host is same and (c) host-locality interaction; (iii) the effect of all these factors differed with the (a) sex and (b) the character under consideration and (iv) the significant change (due to these factors) in any of the computant values (L, oeophageallength, ‘W’ and tail length etc.) may not be reflected in the ratio (a, b and c etc.).