Description and identification of Alnus acuminata ectomycorrhizae from Argentinean alder stands

Abstract

The objective of this study was to describe the morphological and anatomical features of five unidentified ectomycorrhizal types of Alnus acuminata and to complement their identification based on ITS-rDNA sequence analysis. The combined approach of morphotyping and sequence analysis based on ITS sequence comparison with sequences contained in GenBank and the UNITE database let us assign three of the five field-collected ectomycorrhiza morphotypes to the tomentella-thelephora lineage that closely matched European and North American species. The sequencing results within Tomentella point toward alder specific clades within T. sublilacina, T. ellisii and T. stuposa sensu lato. The two other EcM morphotypes matched Lactarius omphaliiformis and a Russula sp. Better focused, concomitant fruit body surveys are needed for accurate identification of South American ectomycorrhizal fungi because of the evidence of cryptic speciation in both agaricoid and resupinate mycobionts.

• Andean alder
• ectomycorrhizas
• ITS sequence analysis
• morphological anatomical characterization
• morphotyping
• Tomentella

This work was partially supported by PROYUNGAS (1999, 2001). AB thanks DAAD, FOMEC and CONICET for the fellowship. AB thanks the people of the Institute of Soil Ecology (Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Germany) and the Division of Organismic Biology: Mycology, Ludwig Max-imilian University, München, Germany. KP and RA received financial support from the German Research Foundation (DFG-SFB607). LT and SP received support from FIBIR, ESF grants 6606, 7434 and JD92. U. Kõljalg is thanked for advice on taxon sampling for the Tomentella phylogram.