Treesearch

DNA markers are rapidly being developed for forest trees. The most important markers are restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs), polymerase chain reaction- (PCR) based markers such as random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), and fingerprinting markers. DNA markers can supplement isozyme markers for monitoring tree improvement activities such as; estimating genetic diversity in breeding populations, germplasm identification, verifying controlled crosses, and estimating seed orchard efficiencies. Because the number of DNA markers is potentially limitless, it should be possible to...

Conservation biology, of which genetics is a major component, is receiving unprecedented attention in the management of natural resources. National fora on biological diversity, adoption by the World Bank of a strong wildland policy, and creation of new management strategies for species protection in our national parks all attest to the growing acceptance and application of this discipline. In applying conservation biology principles to vegetation management in California state parks, this discipline must be practical, usable, responsible and accessible to park managers and ecologists....

Growth responses of ponderosa pine seedlings range from fast to slow after release and often demonstrate the effectiveness of the prescribed treatments. Although several morphological parameters have have identified as being sensitive to competition, no link to future growth and treatment effectiveness has been made. Shrubs and grasses in four 1- to 3-year-old ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl. ex Laws. var. ponderosa) plantations in northern California were treated by several manual and chemical release techniques that resulted in differing amounts of competition to ponderosa pine...

In laboratory studies using albino house mice, a female's prior intrauterine position can affect many postnatal physiological, morphological and behavioral characteristics. Females flanked by males in utero (2M females) exhibit more aggressive dominance than females flanked by females (OM females). Thus, wild 2M females may be most successful during peak population densities when their aggressive nature would allow them to displace other females from limited resources. 2M and 0M females and males delivered by cesarean section were individually marked and released as young adults on two...

Early studies of allozyme variation in plant populations suggested that allelic frequencies in some loci vary by geography. Since then, the expectation that allozymes might be useful in describing geographic patterns has generally not been borne out by single locus analyses, except on the broadest scale. Multi-locus analyses reveal the converse: canonical correlation analysis of individual, uniformly-spaced genotypes describe statistically-significant, complex patterns with geography. Multi-locus scores in four major species, Abies concolor, Pinus lambertiana, P. ponderosa, and Pseudotsuga...

The gametic frequency of a dominant allcle (R) for resistance to white pine blister rust, a disease caused by an introduced pathogen (Cronartium ribicola), in natural populations of sugar pine was estimated by the kind of leaf symptom expressed after artificial inoculation of wind-pollinated seedlings from susceptible seed-parent genotypes (rr). Gene frequency increased clinally from near 0 in the southern Cascade Range to 0.08 in the southern Sierra Nevada, but it was not correlated with any major climatic gradient. Because R expresses a typical hypersensitivity response to pathogenesis,...

Forest trees, populations, races, species, and taxonomic groups above the species level display rich variation in biochemical markers. The variation stems from inherited modifications that trace back in time, through converging ancestries, towards common progenitors. Past movements of continents, mountain building events, and climate changes isolated forest populations one from another and provided critical challenges to the lineages that survived to the present day. A wealth of molecular variants in forest trees characterize these widely-distributed, large, long-lived, outbreeding,...

Genetic diversity is important in tree-breeding, in managing rare and endangered tree species, and in maintaining healthy populations of widespread native tree species. Allozymes are useful in determining genetic relationships among species, where they can be used to assess affiliations of rare taxa and predict relative endangerment among species. Because allozymes sometimes yield different information about genetic variation within species than revealed by other traits, when estimates of total or adaptive genetic variation are important, allozymes are best used in conjunction with other...

Since 1982, under an agreement between the California Department of Water Resources and the USDA Forest Service, snow sensors have been installed and operated in Forest Service-administered wilderness areas in the Sierra Nevada of California. The sensors are to be removed by 2005 because of the premise that sufficient data will have been collected to allow "correlation" and, by implication, prediction of wilderness snow data by nonwilderness sensors that are typically at a lower elevation. Because analysis of snow water equivalent (SWE) data from these wilderness sensors would not be...