Studies on the ectomycorrhizal community in a declining Quercus suber L. stand.

This survey was carried out in a Quercus suber L. stand with many trees affected by the disease "oak decline". Its aim was to obtain information about both the belowground ectomycorrhizal fungal community in a declining Q. suber stand as a whole, and the ectomycorrhizal fungal community of individual tree (EFT) detected in healthy and diseased plants. To this end, we first categorized the trees into four different decline classes (one for healthy plants and three for diseased plants) and then, by using morphological and molecular tools, we identified the ectomycorrhizas isolated from samples collected near the trees with different declining classes. The ectomycorrhizal community as a whole was seen to be composed of numerous ectomycorrhizal fungal species, only some of which appeared to be dominant (Cenococcum geophilum, Lactarius chrysorrheus, and some species of Tomentella genus), while most occurred sporadically. Results show that all root tips observed are mycorrhized and that decline class does not influence the number of ectomycorrhizal root tips found in the EFTs, thus oak decline does not impact the investment in ectomycorrhizal symbiosis. However, some statistical differences can be observed in the values of evenness and taxonomic distinctness in the EFT associated with trees with different states of health. Finally, both the analysis of similarity test and the ordination technique highlight a compositional difference between the EFT associated with trees in different health conditions, but also suggest that other factors may play a role in causing these differences.