Short Note: Development of Mitochondrial Markers for Population Genetics of Norway Spruce [Picea abies (L.) Karst.]

Abstract

Norway spruce is an important commercial tree species in northern and central Europe. Pure mitochondrial DNA isolated from tissue culture materials grown in the dark were used to construct a partial mitochondrial library. 100 clones were randomly selected and 19 markers were isolated. Three of these markers proved to be polymorphic and two showed maternal inheritance in controlled crosses. These markers will be useful for population genetic studies in P. abies.

Use of Nuclear Microsatellite Loci for Evaluating Genetic Diversity of Selected Populations of Picea abies (L.) Karsten in the Czech Republic

“…Knowledge based on DNA analyses regarding the variability of genetic resources will contribute to the quality of the reproduction material and to creating an optimal species composition in forests. Norway spruce has been the subject of numerous genetic surveys using isozymes [10,11], expressed sequence tags markers [12,13], mitochondrial DNA [14,15], sequence tagged site markers [16,17], amplified fragment length polymorphism [18], single nucleotide polymorphisms [19,20], and microsatellite markers [21][22][23][24][25]. Nuclear simple sequence repeats (SSRs, or microsatellites) are widely used for assessing genetic diversity in forestry populations [6].…”