Russell J. Rodriguez Diana W. Freckman Esther Van Der Knaap 1993 <p><span>Arbitrarily-primed polymerase chain reaction (ap-PCR) was used to differentiate closely related bacterial-feeding nematodes of the genera: </span><i>Caenorhabditis, Acrobeloides, Cephalobus and Zeldia</i><span>. Average percentage similarity of bands generated by ap-PCR with seven different primers between 14 isolates of </span><i>Caenorhabditis elegans</i><span> was ⪢ 90%, whereas between </span><i>C. elegans</i><span>, </span><i>C. briggsae</i><span> and </span><i>C. remanei</i><span> similarity was &lt; 20%. Based on intra- and inter-specific similarity between </span><i>Caenorhabditis</i><span> isolates, analysis of </span><i>Acrobeloides, Cephalobus and Zeldia</i><span> isolates revealed either similar or different genotypes. Distinct genotypes were verified by morphological analyses. In addition, the genotypes obtained from single egg-derived nematode populations were also obtained from ap-PCR analysis of single worms. Due to the difficulty of identification of soil nematodes, the ap-PCR offers potential as a rapid and reliable technique to assess biodiversity. Ap-PCR will make it feasible, for the first time, to study the ecological interactions of unique nematode genotypes in soil habitats.</span></p> application/pdf 10.1016/0038-0717(93)90208-S en Elsevier Differentiation of bacterial feeding nematodes in soil ecological studies by means of arbitrarily primed PCR article