Belowground ectomycorrhizal community in natural Tuber borchii truffieres of littoral areas of Italy

Tuber borchii Vittad. is an excellent truffle with a significant local market in the north-east of Italy. To better understand the autoecology of this truffle and achieve better cultivation techniques, we studied the ectomycorrhizal fungal communities in natural Tuber borchii truffières. The area of study is located in the littoral area of the Adriatic sea and it is characterized by sandy soil and planted Pinus forests which are re-establishing in thermopile sub-Mediterranean forests with evergreen oaks. Soil samples were collected both under fruiting bodies of T. borchii and one meter away from them. More than 13,000 root tips of both Pinus sp. and Quercus ilex were analysed. The percentage of mycorrhizal infection formed by T. borchii and other ectomycorrhizal fungi was estimated by identifying the fungal symbiont on each mycorrhizal tip by morphological and molecular methods. Molecular identification was performed using sequence and RFLP analyses of ITS regions. As expected from previous studies Tomentella spp. and Inocybe spp. were the most common ectomycorrhizal fungi associated with T. borchii. The percentage of T. borchii mycorrhizas was much higher than those previously reported in productive T. magnatum truffières.