Culturing and direct DNA extraction find different fungi from the same ericoid mycorrhizal roots.

•  This study compares DNA and culture-based detection of fungi from 15 ericoid mycorrhizal roots of salal (Gaultheria shallon), from Vancouver Island, BC Canada. •  From the 15 roots, we PCR amplified fungal DNAs and analyzed 156 clones that included the internal transcribed spacer two (ITS2). From 150 different subsections of the same roots, we cultured fungi and analyzed their ITS2 DNAs by RFLP patterns or sequencing.