Morphological spore-based characterisation and molecular approaches reveal comparable patterns in glomeromycotan communities

Abstract

Traditionally, characterisation and comparison of AMF communities has been carried out by morphological identificationof asexual spores in soil. In recent decades, molecular methods such as soil metabarcoding have become more popularthan morphological identification of spores, but direct comparisons of the efficiency of both approaches have been rare. Inthis study, we compared AMF communities in soil samples from vegetable farms using both morphological and molecularmethods (internal transcribed spacer, ITS, markers). In addition, we performed a systematic literature search and retrievednine studies that analysed AMF communities using both approaches in the same soil samples, mostly in agroecosystems.Our results show that AMF communities determined by morphological spore-based identification are different than thosedetermined by molecular genetic markers, but not as often claimed. In some cases, the morphological spore-based characterisation of spores revealed more diverse glomeromycotan communities. Moreover, in several cases the spore-basedmethods recovered taxa that the molecular methods did not, while in other cases the opposite was observed. The fieldand literature-based results of this study indicate that for a comprehensive and exhaustive characterisation of AMF communities it is necessary to combine both approaches. However, if the aim is to compare communities under differentenvironmental conditions, both approaches provide comparable patterns.