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ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #100065
Title: NEMATODE SPECIFIC GRAVITY PROFILES AND APPLICATIONS TO FLOTATION EXTRACTIONAND TAXONOMY

Author
item Carta, Lynn
item CARTA, DAVID - VOLUNTEER, USDA, NL

Submitted to: Society of Nematology Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/9/1999
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: A technique is developed that refines the standard sugar flotation procedure used to isolate nematodes from their surroundings. This allows the extraction of information about nematode density that can be used as a physical character. By centrifuging nematodes in a number of increasing specific gravity solutions and plotting the fraction floating, the cumulative probability distribution of the population's specific gravity is generated. By assuming normality, the population mean, micro, and standard deviation, sigma, can be found by a nonlinear least squares procedure. Mean and standard deviation pairs (micro, sigma) were found for the specific gravities of the adult stage of the plant parasites Pratylenchus agilis (1.068, 0.017), P. scribneri (1.074, 0.027), P. penetrans (1.060, 0.015) and the bacterial-feeder Caenorhabditis elegans (1.091, 0.016).