GENE DISCOVERY FOR ADAPTIVE TRAITS IN DOUGLAS-FIR

¹ Institute of Forest Genetics, Pacific Southwest Research Station, USDA Forest Service, Department of Environmental Horticulture, University of California at Davis, 1 Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA

² Institute of Forest Genetics, Pacific Southwest Research Station, USDA Forest Service, 2480 Carson Road, Placerville, CA 95667, USA

³ Molecular Tree Breeding Services LLC, 21040 Flumerfelt Rd SE, Centralia, WA 98531, USA

⁴ Department of Forest Science, Oregon State University, 321 Richardson Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA

⁵ USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, 3200 SW Jefferson Way, Corvallis, OR 97331-4401, USA

Our long term research objective is to discover genes controlling important adaptive traits in Douglas-fir. QTLs controlling several important quantitative traits have been identified through mapping. Their environment interactions and effects on the phenotype have been estimated in field and greenhouse experiments using clonal populations. Now, our task is to identify the specific genes that underlie these QTLs. cDNA libraries have been constructed and sequenced in several conifer species, including ca. 11,000 ESTs in Douglas-fir, and queried for genes known to contribute to specific physiological processes. Many of these EST markers have been mapped in multiple pine species, Norway spruce and Douglas-fir, and a high degree of co-linearity between linkage groups among species has been found. Our current goals are to place known candidate genes on the existing Douglas-fir QTL map and determine associations between alleles of candidate genes and phenotypes of interest in large natural and experimental populations.