Correct identification of wood-inhabiting fungi by ITS analysis

In this study, we established ITS sequences from 20 strong wood degraders from different fungal genera and from 15 strains of the coprini which are occasionally found on wood. These sequences were used in blast searches to evaluate their species identity. ITS sequences confirmed for 25 strains previous morphological species determination. ITS sequences from Coprinopsis scobicola were determined for the first time from DNA of two different strains. Finally, eight strains were found assigned to a wrong species or assignments were uncertain. We present problems encountered in fungal identification by molecular data, such as difficulties in previous morphological identification, occurrence of contaminations or mixing-up of strains in fungal culture collections, and wrong entries in the NCBI GenBank sequence dataset. A long-term target of ITS sequencing of wood-inhabiting fungi is to establish a specific database that can be either used for blast searches or in ITS barcoding for species identification. We present first studies in ITS barcoding of coprini.