In conifers, plastid DNA is inherited through the male lineage via the pollen grain. By contrast, mitochondrial DNA is maternally inherited in the well-studied Pinaceae, but is often paternally inherited in other conifer families. This paper examines the mode of inheritance of plastids and mitochondria in the rare Tasmanian podocarp Lagarostrobos franklinii. It is the first molecular genetic study of organelle inheritance in t...

The species identification in Taxus based on morphological differences has historically been difficult, and molecular markers are important tools to consistently identify Taxus species. The increasing availability of public DNA sequencing data supports efforts to develop such markers. In this study, a new molecular PCR-based marker for the differentiation of the three most abundantly occurring Taxus species in Europe, T. bacca...

In order to predict the future of European forests, it is crucial to assess the potential of the dominant perennial species to adapt to rapid climate change. The aim of this study was to reconstruct the pattern of distribution of drought tolerance in Quercus robur in the current center of the species' range. The distribution and plasticity of drought‐related traits in German populations of Q. robur were assessed and the effect...

Common ash, Fraxinus excelsior , is threatened by the invasive pathogen Hymenoscyphus fraxineus , which causes ash dieback. The pathogen is rapidly spreading throughout Europe with severe ecological and economic consequences. Multiple studies have presented evidence for the existence of a small fraction of genotypes with low susceptibility. Such genotypes can be targets for natural and artificial selection to conserve F. excel...

The large-scale spatial genetic structure of European beech, Fagus sylvatica , has been until now poorly studied. We conducted double digest RAD sequencing (ddRADseq) on 54 beech individuals stemming from 36 provenances to discover spatially informative nuclear SNP loci. In addition, two pools derived from 14 early and 14 late flushing individuals each were sequenced with Illumina HiSeq. From an initial amount of 5,464 loci de...

We used Double Digest Restriction site associated DNA sequencing (ddRADseq), exome sequencing (exome-seq) and targeted genotyping by sequencing (GBS) to develop new geographically informative nuclear SNP markers in Picea abies . This set of 518 loci consists of 397 loci specifically designed for the geographic differentiation of populations and 121 loci of adaptive markers for drought stress which all were identified from 26 s...

The North American Betula lenta L. (sweet birch) has been used for medicinal reasons for centuries by native Americans. Although sophisticated technologies have rapidly been developed, a large information gap has been observed regarding genetic regulators of medicinally important compounds in sweet birch. Very little is known on the different genes involved in secondary metabolic biosynthesis in sweet birch. To gain a deeper i...

Swietenia species are the most valuable American tropical timbers and have been heavily overexploited for decades. The three species are listed as either vulnerable or endangered by IUCN and are included on Appendix II of CITES, yet illegal exploitation continues. Here, we used restriction associated DNA sequencing to develop a new set of 120 SNP markers for Swietenia sp., suitable for MassARRAY®iPLEX™ genotyping. These marker...

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) approaches are attractive alternatives to the PCR-based characterisation of genetically modified plants for safety assessment and labelling since NGS is highly sensitive to the detection of T-DNA inserts as well as vector backbone sequences in transgenic plants. In this study, two independent transgenic male Populus tremula lines, T193-2 and T195-1, both carrying the FLOWERING LOCUS T gene from...