Effects of two years planting transgenic Bt rice (BtSY63) on soil nematode community

: A two-year field experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of planting transgenic Bt rice (BtSY63) and its near-isogenic non-Bt rice (SY63) on the soil nematode abundance, trophic group composition, ecological indices, and community structure. With the planting of BtSY63 and SY63, the soil nematode abundance changed obviously with sampling time, but had no significant difference between planting BtSY63 and SY63. Only at specific sampling time, the percentage of omnivore-predators and the Shannon diversity index of nematode community under the planting of BtSY63 were significantly higher than those under the planting of SY63. The non-metric multidimensional scaling (nMDS) of nematode community revealed that no significant difference was observed in the nematode community composition between planting BtSY63 and SY63 across all sampling times. In conclusion, two years planting BtSY63 had no deleterious effects on the soil nematode community.