affect of different ages of second stage juveniles of meloidogyne chitwoodi on the attachment of pasteuria penetrans to the cuticle of nematode

Pasteuria penetrans is a bacterial parasite of some plant parasite of nematodes which can attach to the cuticle of nematode. differences in attachment of p. penetrans spores to the second stag juvenile (j2) cuticle may provide evidence for nematode cuticle diversity even between different ages of j2s. for investigating this purpose, we studied the effect of different ages of the same population of meloidogyne chitwoodi second stage juveniles (j2) on the attachment of a specific p. penetrans spores. each 200 freshly hatched, 7 and 12 day old j2 were exposed to 40000 spores of p. penetrans. the j2s-spores suspension were centrifuged and were examined with a microscope and attached spores were counted. there were significant differences (p<0.05) in spore attachment between fresh m. chitwoodi j2 and 12- day-old j2. although there were no significant differences between spore attachment using fresh j2 and 7day-old j2, the numbers of spores attached to the 7-day-old j2 were lower than the numbers attaching to the fresh ones. from this study we can suggest that age of j2s can affect on spores attachment and this may help to have a successful management program.