Effects of maternal environment on mortality and growth in young Pinus sylvestris in field trials

Abstract

The same full-sib families of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) were created by artificial pollination of genetically identical grafts at three localities in Sweden at approximately 56, 59 and 64 degrees N. Two field trials were established with one-year-old plants in different years at latitude 64 degrees N. Height and survival were monitored for 4-5 years following planting. Maternal environment had significant aftereffects on the height of progeny. In both field trials, plants with the maternal parent at 59 degrees N were tallest and plants with the maternal parent at 64 degrees N were shortest. The aftereffects of maternal environment were as large in six-year-old plants as in one-year-old plants. In one field trial, maternal environment had a significant effect on mortality six years after germination but not after three years. Mortality increased with decreasing latitude of the maternal location. We conclude that the aftereffects of maternal environment are too large and too permanent to be regarded as unimportant.

Reduced fitness at early life stages in peripheral versus core populations of Swiss stone pine (Pinus cembra) is not reflected by levels of inbreeding in seed families

“…This could partly be due to maternal effects, known to be important for seedling performance Roach and Wulff 1987;Wolfe 1993;Lindgren and Wei 1994). In line with this, we detected a positive influence of seed weight on germination success, seedling survival and first-year growth, indicating that maternal resource allocation did affect offspring performance in P. cembra.…”

Parental environment aftereffects on germination, growth, and adaptive traits in selected white spruce families

“…However, since these studies were confounded by comparing wind pollinations (in the natural environment) with control pollinations (using seed orchard pollen only), more recent studies utilized control pollinations for more meaningful comparisons. These studies also found that aftereffects are present in Norway spruce (Skrøppa et al 1994), Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) (Lindgren and Wei 1994), and Larix species (Greenwood and Hutchison 1996).…”

“…Over the past 10 years, research results have shown that progeny performance is affected by parental environment during sexual reproduction (Johnsen et al 1995;Skrøppa et al 1994;Lindgren and Wei 1994;Greenwood and Hutchison 1996). This phenomenon, first observed when northern parents were moved to a southern seed orchard location for enhanced seed production, is called "seed orchard aftereffects."…”

Identification of seed sources and parents of Pinus sylvestris L. using visible–near infrared reflectance spectra and multivariate analysis

“…For P. sylvestris, a significant after-effect was observed in seed weight, height growth, mortality and frost hardiness in the nursery, phytotron, and field trials (Lindgren and Wang 1986;Dormling and Johnsen 1992;Lindgren and Wei 1994). After-effects on cold acclimation and height growth in lodgepole pine seedlings have also been reported (Wei et al 2001).…”

“…Seed samples were obtained from a controlled crossing experiment performed earlier to study possible maternal environmental effects on the performance of progenies (Lindgren and Wang 1986;Dormling and Johnsen 1992;Lindgren and Wei 1994). In the study performed to identify seed sources, seed samples were drawn from a single family (a cross of clones AC1005 and BD1178) grown in three localities in Sweden: Sävar (north, 63 • 54 N and 20 • 33 E), Röskär (central, 59 • 25 N and 18 • 12 E) and Degeberga (south, 55 • 47 N and 14 • 04 E) and harvested in 1982-1983.…”