BioEcoServe
For a healthy soil, sustainable food production
and human wellbeing
About
We are BioEcoServe, an environmental services company, a start up of the South East Technological University, at the Carlow campus. Our approach relies on nature based solutions using nematodes as bioindicators of soil and sediment health, and also as environmentally safe biological insecticides.
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Our mission is to safeguard the health of people and the environment, via scientific innovation and sustainable approaches in environmental risk assessment and food security.
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BioEcoServe applies nature-based solutions in line with the EU Biodiversity strategy for 2030 "Bringing nature back into our lives", as well as the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Nematodes
Nematodes are microscopic, threadlike, colourless roundworms and usually not visible with the naked eye. They do inhabit, however, nearly every habitat on our planet, and are the most abundant and widespread animals in nature (Wilson and Kakouli-Duarte, 2009).
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Sensitive to pollutants, nematodes respond quickly to environmental disturbance in the soil. They are therefore ideal as biological indicators of environmental change (Bongers and Ferris, 1999).
The diversity and high abundance of nematode communities influence the global carbon cycle and highlight their functional importance in nutrient cycling and agricultural soil food-web functioning (van den Hoogen et al, 2019).
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Agri-facts about Nematodes
Plants growing in soil with bacteria and bacteria feeding nematodes absorb more nitrogen than plants growing in soil with bacteria only (Ingham, 1985).
When bacterial and fungal feeding nematodes graze, they release carbon dioxide and ammonia ions, taking part in the ecosystem service of decomposition, and in the mineralisation of carbon and nitrogen in the soil (Ingham, 1985).
The presence of large bodied nematodes is highly important in agricultural soils, as they feed on bacterial and fungal feeding nematodes, improve nutrient cycling, release more nutrients available for plant uptake and regulate the populations of colonising opportunistic nematodes (Yeates, 1996).
A sample of 100 g soil can contain between 1,000-5,000 individual nematodes
