Genetic and phenotypic diversity of geographically different isolates of Glomus mosseae

In this work, we combined morphological taxonomy and molecular methods to investigate the intraspecific diversity of Glomus mosseae, whose global distribution has been reviewed by a survey of scientific literature and Web-available records from international germplasm collections (International Culture Collection of Vesicular Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi and International Bank of Glomeromycota). We surveyed 186 publications reporting the occurrence of G. mosseae from at least 474 different sites from 55 countries throughout all continents, producing a geographical map of their distribution. The relationships among G. mosseae isolates originating from Europe (United Kingdom), the United States (Arizona, Florida, and Indiana), Africa (Namibia), and West Asia (Syria) were analyzed. The level of resolution of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences strongly supports the morphological species definition of G. mosseae. An ITS - restriction fragment length polymorphism assay with the enzyme HinfI yielded a unique profile for all G. mosseae isolates, allowing a straightforward identification of this morphospecies. Genetic variability among G. mosseae isolates was revealed by the inter-simple-sequence repeat (ISSR) - polymerase chain reaction: the magnitude of genetic divergence shown by the investigated geographical isolates was higher than 50%, consistent with previous data on vegetative compatibility and functional diversity. The variability of ISSR patterns suggests that intraspecific diversity is much higher than that foreseen by morphology and rDNA regions, and should be further investigated by using other genes, such as those related to functional diversity.