Nematodes in soil and arboreal habitats of different types of forest ecosystems

Canopy-dwelling animals include invertebrates traditionally classified as soil-dwellers. This phenomenon has been known for a long time, but has mainly been studied in Oribatida and Collembola. Despite the considerable amount of research on wood-inhabiting parasitic nematodes, the diversity and distribution patterns of free-living nematodes on tree bark and in epiphytes remain limited and fragmentary. In this study, we used DNA metabarcoding to assess diversity patterns of free-living nematodes in the canopy and compared them with soil communities in three different forest types.