Extensive Fungal Diversity in Plant Roots

摘要

Fungi play crucially important roles in the biosphere, mediating many ecological pro- cesses. Despite this, the fungal diversity in natural habitats is poorly know. Using new- ly designed fungal-specific polymerase chain raction (pCR) primers (1), we examined total fungal diversity in a relatively mundane habitat, the roots of a plant. Total "environmental DNA' was prepared From individual, extensively cleaned roots of The grass Arrhenatherum elatius (2).