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Copyright of Forestry Chronicle is the property of Canadian Institute of Forestry and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Ecoscience (Ecoscience) is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Throughout the world, the diversity of fungi remains poorly characterized and Cortinarius is a classical example of a difficult, species-rich, and under-researched mushroom genus. Here, we sequenced and analyzed ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequence barcodes from herbarium specimens to improve understanding of Cortinarius species diversity in British Columbia (B.C.), Canada. Starting with 962 specimen sequences, 617 from B.C. herbaria, we present a maximum likelihood tree showing 179 putative Cortinarius species in British Columbia. As a working definition, we considered a 'species' to be a monophyletic clade that included a reliably identified reference sequence, with a maximum of 3% ITS sequence variation. If no reference sequence was available, 'species' were groups sharing 97% or more sequence identity. By these criteria, 110 putative B.C. species matched European species and 12 B.C. species matched species exclusively found in the Americas. Of the 56 B.C. species that did not match an identified reference sequence, some may be new to science, while others likely represent described species without available sequences. By depositing sequences from B.C. specimens into GenBank and BOLD, and by providing our alignment to TreeBASE, we have supplied the resources necessary to improve accuracy in identifications of Cortinarius in future systematic and ecological studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diversity and abundance of terrestrial lichens, mosses, and liverworts were examined and compared between two ages of forest (old-growth and young second-growth) on two dominant soil types (fine- and coarse-textured soils) in subboreal spruce forests in central British Columbia. Major differences in species composition were found between forest ages, with 30% of species found only in old-growth forest and 21% found only in young second-growth forest. Liverworts were much more common in old-growth sites with half the liverwort species found exclusively in old-growth, and 90% of the recorded liverwort observations occurring there. Different moss species assemblages dominated old-growth and second-growth sites, with much of the terrestrial cover of second-growth sites composed of Polytrichum juniperinum Hedw. Young second-growth forest had higher cover of lichen species than old-growth forest. Lichens and bryophytes used different terrestrial substrates in each forest age, with higher cover of mosses and lichens occurring on woody substrates in old-growth, irrespective of substrate availability. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling ordination clearly separated plots by forest age and also showed soil texture to be a defining variable. Though not statistically significant, there was increased bryophyte diversity on coarse-textured soils and increased lichen cover on fine-textured soils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]