Applications of geostatistics in plant nematology

The application of geostatistics to plant nematology was made by evaluating soil and nematode data acquired from 200 soil samples collected from the A(p) horizon of a reed canary-grass field in northern Minnesota. Geostatistical concepts relevant to nematology include semi-variogram modelling, kriging, and change of support calculations. Soil and nematode data generally followed a spherical semi-variogram model, with little random variability associated with soil data and large inherent variability for nematode data. Block kriging of soil and nematode data provided useful contour maps of the data. Change of snpport calculations indicated that most of the random variation in nematode data was due to short-range spatial variability in the nematode population densities.