Feeding and reproduction of Aphelenchus avenae, Aphelenchoides sacchari and Aphelenchoides clarus on cultures of soil related fungi Aspergillus niger, A. flavus, and Fusarium oxysporum

Abstract

Aphelenchus avenae Bastian 1865,and Aphelenchoides clarus Thorne and Malek, 1968, and Aphelenchoides sacchari Hooper 1958 are mycophagous nematodes belonging to the Aphelenchida order. These nematodes are highly distributed in vineyards in Turkey. In this study, the reproduction potential of these three nematodes was determined under in-vitro conditions using the fungi Aspergillus niger, A. flavus, and Fusarium oxysporum. The fungi used in the experiments were isolated from soils collected from vineyards and maintained on Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) at 25°C. Nematodes were extracted from the soils using the modified Baermann funnel method. After one week of fungal growth, 30 females of each nematode species (A. avenae, A. clarus and A. sacchari) were hand-picked and inoculated into the fungal cultures, which were then incubated for about a month at 25°C. At the end of the month, all nematode species reproduced in the Fusarium oxysporum culture. The reproduction rate was the lowest in A. avenae (44 individuals, a 1.46-fold increase) and the highest  A. sacchari (177 individuals, a 5.9-fold increase). However, none of the nematodes reproduced in the A. niger or A. flavus cultures. The juvenile populations of A. sacchari, and A.clarus were abundant in the fungal cultures, and in petri dishes where the nematode population increased significantly, fungal cultures showed visible deterioration and a decrease in biomass.