Plant & Animal Genomes XI Conference

January 11-15, 2003
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Workshop: Forest Trees
            

ANALYSIS OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF MARKER CLASSES IN A GENETIC LINKAGE MAP OF NORWAY SPRUCE (P. ABIES KARST.)

¹ Dipartimento di Produzione Vegetale e Tecnologie Agrarie - Università degli Studi di Udine, via delle Scienze 208, Udine, 33100, Italia

² INRA - Equipe de Génétique et Amélioration des Arbres Forestiers, 69 Route d'Arcachon, Cestas, F-33612, France

³ Scottish Crop Research Institute, Invergowrie, Dundee, DD2 5DA, United Kingdom

⁴ Institute of Forest Genetics - Pacific Southwest Research Station - USDA Forest Service - Department of Environmental Horticulture - University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

A genetic linkage map of Norway spruce (Picea abies Karst.) was constructed using a total of 691 markers comprising six marker types, including dominant and codominant loci, and loci belonging to the low and high copy-number fractions of the genome (AFLPs, S-SAPs, SSRs, ESTPs, IRAPs, and SCARs), using a pseudo-testcross scheme. Upon generation of the female and male parent maps, thirteen linkage groups were obtained, including at least one linkage group from each of the two parental maps, bridged by at least one shared marker. The analysis of the distribution of marker types over linkage groups and relative to each other shows that DNA classes are not randomly distributed, with some classes of markers (e.g. ESTs) contributing more than others, in relative terms, to the set of linked markers; with some linkage groups enriched in ESTPs and/or SSRs; with IRAP and AFLP markers showing clustering; with S-SAPs and IRAPs separated from ESTs and SSRs, respectively. In general, low copy-number and high-copy number markers displayed a tendency to occupy separate regions of the linkage groups. The non-random distribution of markers of different types, could explain the small number of linkage groups obtained here, compared to other linkage mapping efforts in the Picea genus that did not use such a variety of marker types representing different sequence classes.