RECENT ADVANCES IN ECOLOGY AND SYSTEMATICS OF MORELS

The paper summarises recent advances in the field of the biology and e cology of morels and presents new results aiming to highlight the spec ies definition in this group with controversial systematics. Experimen ts using different morel species show that the association with plants can be specific. However, as bacteria may modify their nature, the sp ecificity of the associations must be used cautiously as criterion to characterise morel species. Within the modern approaches, the analysis of the ITS-region appears as the most adapted to characterise true sp ecies and to revise the systematics of the Morchellaceae. Examples wit hin the group of the yellow morels are given.