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 whichcan 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