Abstract:Soil mixed with either pig manure or rice straw was placed in a mesh bag (1mm or 5μm), and then surrounded by an outer layer of unamended soil, to generate with greater populations of bacterial-feeding nematodes, compared to a normal field soil. The results showed that addition of pig manure and rice straw significantly increased the nematode populations. The increased nematodes were able to migrate through the 1mm mesh into the outer soil, thus giving greater populations than in soil surrounding the 5μm mesh, which nematodes cannot migrate through. After 28 and 35 days incubation respectively, the outer soil contained a 9.1-times increase of nematodes in the pig manure treatment and an 8.9-times in the rice straw treatment, compared to soil with no added substrate. While the nematode abundance in the outer soils surrounding the 5μm mesh was not significantly different from the no-substrate treatment. The increased nematodes were mainly bacterial-feeders (primarily Protorhabditis sp.), accounting for 98.2% of total nematodes in the pig manure treatment and 90.5% in the rice straw treatment at the end of the incubation. And the total abundance of bacterial-feeding nematodes was increased by 14.8 times and 8.9 times than no-substrate treatment respectively in pig manure treatment and the rice straw treatment.