Assessing genetic variability in T. aestivum populations from Turkey

Previous studies have shown that within the T. aestiuvum species-complex, specimen can show a continuum of morphological traits between the T. uncinatum and the T. aestivum morphotypes and different ITS/RFLP patterns (Paolocci et al. 2004). T aestivum, differently from T. melanosporum and T. magnatum whose geographical ranges are confined around the Mediterranean area and surroundings, is distributed all over Europe. Natural T. melanosporum and T. magnatum populations from the southernmost areas of their ranges show higher levels of genetic diversity than those from northern sites (Murat et al. 2004; Rubini et al. 2005; Riccioni et al. 2008). As it is likely that these species experienced a population bottleneck during the last ice age, these data have been interpreted to mean that refugia for T. magnatum and T. melanosporum were located in the southernmost areas of their original ranges to spread northward as the ice receded. Whether T. aestivum also experienced a population bottleneck during the last ice age is currently unknown. A detailed analysis of distribution and extent of genetic variability within and among its southernmost populations would certainly help to address this crucial point and likely mark these truffles according to their origin. To this end, we started collecting truffles from different natural sites located in the Anatolian peninsula (Turkey). Here we present preliminary results on biodiversity of T. aestivum samples from this region by means of ITS sequencing analysis. These preliminary analyses let us to argue that T. aestivum-T. uncinatum truffles from Anatolian peninsula could be typed according to their provenance and that they likely display specific signatures to be differentiated from European populations. The ongoing sequencing of ITS from additional Anatolian samples and alignment with sequences of T. aestivum truffles from all over Europe will provide us with more data to verify these hypotheses.