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Diversity of postfire mycorrhizal fungi on Picea mariana
Mill. within prescribed burn sites along the west coast of
Newfoundland
Poster/Talk Session: Biodiversity and Ecology
BALDWIN, QUENTIN and KEITH EGGER
Biology Dept, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St.
John's, Nfld. A1B 3X9, Canada
Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, The University
of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, BC, V2N 4Z9,
Canada
ICOM1 Abstract
Three year old Black Spruce (P. mariana) seedlings were
collected for mycorrhizal diversity assessment as part of a
Canadian Forest Service project studying the effects of
prescribed burning. In the fall of 1993, 25-week old
seedlings were planted into 4 experimental blocks located
in a clear-cut region. Each block consisted of 3 randomly
allocated treatments (high intensity burn, low intensity
burn, unburned). In the fall of 1995 randomly harvested
seedlings were surveyed for mycorrhizal fungi using
molecular identification techniques. Root tips were
randomly selected from each seedling and frozen for later
molecular analysis. Individual root tips were crushed and
the fungal DNA amplified via the polymerase chain reaction
(PCR) procedure. Fungal specific primers were used to
amplify an approximately 1100 base pair segment of the
ribosomal DNA. Restriction fragment length polymorphisms
(RFLP) for each fungal isolate were obtained using three
restriction endonucleases (Alu I, Hinf I, Rsa I). Fragment
patterns were analyzed to match isolates and measure
biodiversity. Preliminary results show that at least 9% of
root tips analyzed harbored more than one fungal species
per root tip. It has also been observed that some root
tips which show mycorrhizal habitation cannot be
successfully amplified. At present the RFLP data for each
of the burn treatments is being compared to determine
shared and unique fungal species within and between
treatments.