Fig.1. Correlations between lipid biomarker concentrations and microscopicmethods. A: root lipid concentrations and AMF colonization. B: rhizosphere soil lipid concentrations and spore density. Correlations are presented separately for each lipid fraction and experiment. Statistically significant correlations (P=0.05) are marked with asterisks.
lowest in the South Farm soil. In the roots (Table 3), colonization was highest in Vancy and South Farm soils and lowest in FSP soil, althoughthedifferencewasstatisticallysignificantinonlythesecondexperiment.SimilarresultswereobtainedforPLFA,NLFA,and ELFAbiomarkers,althoughthestatisticalsignificancevariedsomewhat. Correlations between microscopic and lipid methods are presented in Fig. 1. In the root samples (Fig. 1A), only ELFA was significantly correlated to colonization in both experiments. PLFA and NLFA biomarkers were positively correlated to root colonization, but the correlations were statistically significant only in the second experiment. In the rhizosphere (Fig. 1B), NLFA and ELFA biomarkers were positively and significantly correlated to spore density, but the PLFA biomarker was negatively correlated. NLFA