TuberKey: A delta-based tool for the description and interactive identification of truffles

Forty-five descriptors of truffle morphology and habitat/host plant prefere nces were coded in a format adhering to the DELTA (DEscription Language for TAxonomy) standard. Character states, bath qualitative and quantitative, w ere described for 18 truffle species. Special care was taken in the descrip tion of taxa belonging to the so-called 'white' and 'whitish' truffles, whi ch are often difficult to identify simply on the basis of traditional morph ological characters, while available literature data corroborated by direct observations of fresh ascocarp samples were utilized for the other truffle species. For a subset of taxa in our study sample, species-specific molecu lar markers and anatomo-morphological characters of the mycorrhizae were al so annotated. DELTA descriptors were used to develop TuberKey, a package of illustrated information and identification programs that allows the use of interactive keys to search and interrogate the entire character database a nd to recognize truffle species. Interactive identification can be conducte d locally on a personal computer, or through the Internet via the World Wid e Web. Other facilities provided by TuberKey are the automatic generation o f new keys and natural language descriptions, and data transformation for m orphology-based cladistic analyses. The DELTA database of truffle character s as well as the identification software can be accessed at the URL: http:/ /www.truffle.org/tuberkey.