Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - A new study of free-living soil nematodesco-authored by Vietnamese scientist Nguyen Thi Anh Duong was published in Nature– the world's leading multidisciplinary science journal.

Duong, who works at the Vietnam Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources,Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, has conducted research and datacollection, building a database of soil nematodes in Vietnam for over 10 years.

She has collaborated with 70 leadingscientists in the field at 57 laboratories around the world to research andpublish the work.

“Ecology research often focuses on visible parts of the ecosystem like largeplants and animals, and overlooks tiny worms living in the soil, likenematodes. Despite their importance for ecosystems, few quantitative,spatially-explicit models of the active belowground community currently exist.That’s why we wanted to study these most abundant animals on Earth,” Duongsaid.

The study revealed that there are 57 billion nematodes for every single livinghuman being – much greater than previously estimated. They also have a totalbiomass of about 300 million tons, approximately 80 per cent of the combinedweight of Earth's human population.

Nematodes play a significant role in the recycling of carbon, nutrients andminerals in the soil. Nematode abundance is strongly correlated with soilcarbon: where there are more worms, there is more carbon.

“We hope this is the first in-depth study of the role and function of thesesmall and sensitive soil animals that contribute to predicting future climatechange,” Duong said.

“Soil nematodes can be a tool for testing ecological hypotheses andunderstanding biological mechanisms in soil because of their central role inthe soil food web and linkage to ecological processes.”

She hoped that with the results of the research, scientists can help in thefight against climate change.

“We hope this will help land managers make the right decisions in the fight tostop biodiversity loss and address climate change at a global level byidentifying soil types that need to be recovered,” she said.

For the study, researchers took 6,759 geo-referenced samples to generate amechanistic understanding of the patterns of the global abundance of nematodesin the soil and the composition of their functional groups.

They used microscopes to analyse the density of each type of nematode andgenerate a representative global dataset. Using the information, they builtmodels which predict nematode populations for each square kilometre and createthe first global high-resolution maps of soil nematode density.

During her time collecting samples and data on nematodes in Vietnam, Duong hadto travel to remote areas in national parks in mountainous areas.

“I’ve seen lots of snakes and insects when collecting samples in the forests.But the hardest part was analysing the samples in the lab, which sometimes tookme up to six or seven months,” Duong said.

Duong was the first female scientist at the Vietnam Academy of Science andTechnology to have a study published in Nature.

She graduated as the valedictorian of the Department of Biology, NaturalResources and Environment at the University of Natural Sciences – Vietnam NationalUniversity, Ho Chi Minh City.

She got her PhD in Biology at the University of Cologne, Germany, then returnedto work at the Nematology Department at the Institute of Ecology and BiologicalResources of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology.

In 2017, Duong won the 2017 Golden Globe Award for young people withoutstanding achievements in scientific research awarded by the Ministry ofScience and Technology.

Duong is the author and co-author of nearly 30 prestigious international articles,announcing 15 new species for science. – VNS/VNA