Next-generation sequencing of the soil nematode community enables the sustainability of banana plantations to be monitored

Uganda faces a considerable challenge to match its food production to an annual population growth rate of 3%. Cooking bananas are the country's most produced staple crop but the annual national harvest is not increasing. The crop grows on infertile soils that are normally fertilised organically and often susceptible to erosion. Soil nematodes are well-established as bioindicators of soil quality that can support environmental monitoring and assessment of the sustainability of agricultural systems. These invertebrates are a highly ranked indicator of biodiversity with molecular approaches available. Consequently, we have applied next-generation DNA sequencing of soil nematodes to evaluate soil quality of Ugandan banana plantations. The aim is to establish a method for constructing an aspect of an environmental biosafety dossier with the future aim of assessing the impact of transgenic crops and improving current cropping systems. The soil samples did not differ significantly in any of the measured soil chemistry factors, soil texture or percentage of organic matter. Thirty taxons of soil nematodes other than the plant parasites were recovered from soil supporting nine banana plantations plus three each from coffee and banana-coffee interplants from East and West Uganda. Cluster analysis correctly allocated each plantation to the crop/intercrop being grown when based on the abundance of taxa rather than taxa presence or absence. This indicates that the host has considerable effects on the abundance of specific nematode species within the soil. Overall, nematodes were more abundant in soil from coffee plantations than from banana-coffee interplants with the lowest values being from fields supporting just banana. Only the basal and trophic diversity indices and the percentage of nematodes that are rapid colonisers varied between the three plantation types. The soil of all fifteen plantations can be classified as having a mature soil web condition with low physical disturbance, limited chemical stressors, moderately high nutrient enrichment and balanced decomposition channels.