Abstract

To improve clean-up techniques by landfarming, lysimeters (4.25*4.25*0.5m) were filled with an oil contaminated sandy soil obtained from a bus garage site. Soil (in the open air or covered) was manipulated by raining, fertilizing and seeding. In the half year observation period the impact of restoration techniques on nematode fauna was investigated. The lysimeter results were compared with the composition of nematode fauna in the polluted and in the clean reference soil at the garage site. The numbers of nematodes in the polluted soil were 20 times that of the reference soil, and were dominated by Cuticulariaoxycerca. In the lysimeters bacterial feeders were also dominant at the start, but decreased with time while carnivorous Odontopharynx longicaudata increased. At the end of the experiment restoration of nematode fauna was still in progress: species diversity was 3 times lower than in the reference and feeding group ratio's were quite different.