Bruns and Shefferson 2004

		Bruns, T. and R.P. Shefferson. 2004. Evolutionary studies of ectomycorrhizal
		fungi: milestones and future directions. Canadian Journal of Botany 82:1122- 1132.

Abstract The three biggest advances in fungal molecular phylogenetics in the last few
years have been (1) the huge expansion in data sets, (2) the development of
nonribosomal loci for phylogenetic analysis, and (3) the use of increasingly
sophisticated types of analyses. In addition, advances in parallel computing hold great
promise for dramatic increases in speed of analysis. These changes have had, or will
have, a direct impact on mycorrhizal ecology through the use of sequence-based
identification and an indirect impact through the conclusions drawn from such studies.
One problem in the field has been the accidental addition of erroneous sequences to
the public databases through a variety of means, including polymerase change
reaction contamination. We discuss several examples, suggest ways to identify errors,
and argue the case for third-party annotations of sequences. Multiple studies have
produced compelling evidence that the ectomycorrhizal habit has developed
convergently in multiple lineages of fungi and plants. We reexamine the case for loss
of the ectomycorrhizal habit in fungi and show that the results are model dependent.

Article copyright notice: © 2004 by NRC Canada

Bruns and Shefferson 2004