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Soils are populated by a higher number of microbial and invertebrate organisms. Microorganisms found in soil are bacteria, actinomycetes, fungi, algae, protozoa, nematodes and other invertebrates. A gram of soil contains 10 billion microorganisms which play an extensive role in organic matter decomposition, nutrients recycling, soil metabolism and soil aggregates. Most of the microorganisms that are found in nature are unculturable. Identification of those uncultured organisms is difficult and time-consuming. Hence these uncultured microorganisms can be identified with the help of metagenomics. It offers a way to access uncultured microorganisms because it is culture-independent and involves direct isolation of DNA from environmental samples. Like other microorganisms, nematodes, the most abundant metazoan in soil, are widely distributed in various ecosystems. The Identification of individuals up to species level using conventional techniques is cumbersome,  and requires more time. Hence metagenomics is a genetic tool utilized for the identification of nematodes.

Keywords: Metagenomics, Taxonomy, Nematode, Species identification, Bioinformatics 

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4. Metagenomics an overview and its application in nematology_compressed.pdf