PARENT SESSION
Poster Session 23: Soil Ecology
Wednesday, August 10, 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM, Exhibit Hall 220 A-E, Level 2, Palais des congrès de Montréal
Changes in soil fungal communities across meadow-forest transects in the Western Cascades Mountains of Oregon, USA.
Kageyama, Stacie*,1, Bottomley, Peter1, Cromack, Kermit 1, Myrold, David 1, 1 Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA
ABSTRACT- Molecular analyses of ectomycorrhizal root tips and collections of sporocarps in Pacific Northwest coniferous forests indicate that fungal communities are spatially heterogeneous. The goal of this study was to use molecular techniques to examine changes in the total fungal community along forest-meadow transects. We used fungal ITS rDNA primers with length heterogeneity PCR amplification of DNA extracted from soil. We collected soil cores along three transects at two paired high montane forest-meadow sites at the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest in the Western Cascade Mountains of Oregon, USA. Our results agree with earlier root tip and sporocarp studies that indicate that the forest communities are spatially heterogeneous. In contrast, our results for the adjacent meadows indicate that these fungal communities are much more homogeneous in their composition.
Key words: fungi, fungal communities, forest ecology, mycorrhizae