Molecular ecology of ectomycorrhizal fungal communities : new frontiers

Ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi are ubiquitous in forest ecosystems and form symbiotic associations with roots of woody plants. They have important roles in both carbon and nutrient cycling processes, particularly those associated with host plant nutrition (Smith and Read, 1997). Significant advances have been made in ECM community ecology during the last decade (Horton and Bruns, 2001). This has been driven largely by the development and implementation of molecular biological techniques which have been used alongside traditional morphological and anatomical-based approaches. Undoubtedly this 'molecular revolution' (Horton and Bruns, 2001) has, at least in part, been due to the utility and informative nature of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions of fungal rRNA that is targeted in most ECM ecological studies, and the fact that the costs associated with the generation of molecular data have decreased considerably over the last few years.