Understanding the underlying genetic causes of adaptation to local conditions is one of the main goals of population genetics. A strong latitudinal cline in the phenotypic trait of bud set is observed in present day populations of Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst). The first step towards determining how this strong selection on adaptive traits translates at the loci underlying the trait was to use multilocus sequence data to gain information on the fundamental population genetic properties of Norway spruce. We determined that the level of LD was low and genetic diversity was in the low range. Coalescent simulations revealed a demographic scenario of a fairly old and severe bottleneck as consistent with the observed data. To examine the role of selection at genes putatively involved in the control of bud set we, again, used a multilocus data set to test for deviations from neutrality and demographic scenarios inferred from background loci. Different candidate genes were identified by using different approaches, highlighting the difficulty in predicting how local adaptation will manifest itself on different time scales and in rangewide samples. When examining properties important in the design of association studies, the inevitable next step in identifying genes involved in local adaptation, we found that previous estimates of a low level of LD were highly influenced by the joint analysis of several loci over a large distribution range and that estimates of LD was in fact heterogeneous across loci and increased within populations. In addition, we found that within species tests for deviations from neutral expectations were highly sensitive to sample size. Additional genomic sequence characterization in Norway spruce is necessary to provide more comprehensive sets of markers for association studies, also including gene promoters and non-genic regions of the genome. In the final paper we show that the HMPR method is effective in constructing libraries enriched for the single copy fraction of the genome when applied to the large and dominantly repetitive genome of Norway spruce. In summary, the studies presented in this thesis together constitute a foundation for future studies on adaptive evolution in Norway spruce.

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Angl. resumé

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Tyrimų pagrindimas. Paprastoji eglė yra svarbi ūkinė rūšis Lietuvoje. Kilmių perkėlimas ir tolesnė selekcija gali ženkliai padidinti genetinę naudą gautiną iš p . eglės ūkinės paskirties medynų. Tuo tikslu, reikia informacijos apie genetinius skirtumus ir jų kitimo dėsningumus tarp p. eglės populiacijų perspektyviame introdukcijai Baltijos regione. Tyrimo tikslas- palyginti paprastosios eglės Baltijos regiono kilmių palikuonių adaptacinių, stiebo kokybės ir gyvybingumo požymių geografinio kintamumo dėsningumus bei kilmių perkėlimo ūkinę naudą bandomuosiuose želdiniuose. Objektas – 2001 m. įveisti paprastosios eglės Baltijos regiono kilmių palikuonių bandomieji želdiniai Kazlų Rūdos MMU (85 kilmės, po 50 kiekvienos kilmės medelių). Metodai – tyrimo metu buvo įvertintas medelių aukštis ir stiebo kokybė, nustatyta pumpurų sprogimo klasė, bei atlikta šių duomenų statistinė analizė. Rezultatai. Iš pietų į šiaurę perkeltų kilmių medeliai buvo aukštesni, geresnės stiebo kokybės ir vėliau pradėjo sezoninį augimą nei šiaurinių kilmių medeliai. Ypač mažu produktyvumu ir prasta stiebo kokybe pasižymėjo šiauriausios šiame bandyme pietų Suomijos kilmės, o šiaurinės Lenkijos kilmių medeliai produktyvumu lenkė vietinės kilmės medelius. Tai paaiškintina santykinai stipresniais šalnų pakenkimais, dėl ankstyvesnės šiauresnių kilmių sezoninio augimo pradžios ir mažesniu medeliu aukščiu dėl santykinai ankstesnės augimo pabaigos. Minėtų požymių geografinis kintamumas yra palaipsniui... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Background. Norway spruce is an imprint commercial forest tree specie sin Lithuanian. Provenance transfer and further breeding may markedly rise the benefit from commercial forests of Norway spruce,. For this purpose, there is a need of information on genetic variation and its geographical patters among Norway spruce provenances within the Baltic sea region of interest for introduction to Lithuania an don the benefit of the transfer itself. Objectives of the study are to compare the patterns of geographical variation among Baltic Norway spruce provenances in adaptive traits and to assess benefit of provenance transfer in the experimental plantation. The test. The study was carried out in an experimental plantation of Baltic Norway spruce provenances established in 2001 in Kazlu Ruda MMU (85 provenances of 50 trees each). Methods. Height, stem quality and stage of budburst in spring of the provenances were measured in the experimental plantation and statistical analysis methods were used to present the data. The results. The results showed that trees of the southern provenances were taller of better stem quality and later growth start in spring than trees of northern provenances. Trees of the most northern in this trial Finnish and Swedish provenances performed extremely poorly. Northern Polish provenances were more productive than the tree of the local origin. This result may be a consequence of spring frost damage of early flushing trees. The trees of northern... [to full text]

In Norway spruce there's a large natural variation in durability but knowledge about what is causing this variation is missing. In this thesis the focus were put into investigating how the water uptake ability was affected by the influence of heartwood versus sapwood and wood properties such as density and annual ring width. Liquid water permeability was checked trough a modified version of EN 927-5 and samples were also investigated trough the Mycologg Method. The wide grown wood with a coating system (a priming oil and alkyd or acrylate paint) absorbed less water than the narrow grown wood in the permeability test. The Mycologg test showed a clear difference between wide and narrow grown wood. Further research is necessary to examine the impact of wood properties when it comes to water uptake.

Norway spruce is one of two dominating species in Swedish forestry and the most economically important tree species in Sweden. In order to preserve the ability to adapt to a changing environment and to keep populations healthy, genetic diversity has to be preserved. When choosing a small number of individuals from a natural stand to establish a seed orchard the population size decrease. With only a small number of genetically different individuals the risk of inbreeding increase. Furthermore if many clones of the same tree are used in one seed orchard there is also an increased risk selfing. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate whether genetic diversity in Norway spruce differs between age groups and if this can be attributed to forestry practices. All sampling was done from a single location in Västerbotten, Sweden and the different age groups were chosen to represent stands not affected by the modern forest industry to recently planted forests. The chosen age groups are young (12-18 years), intermediate (30-45 years), and old (above 85 years). From each age group 150 individuals were sampled. With genomic microsatellite markers each individual was genotyped at eight simple sequence repeat (SSR) loci. Results show an overall high genetic diversity with an average expected heterozygosity (He) at 0.842 and low genetic differentiation with an average fixation index among populations (FST) of 0.003. The genetic diversity of each age group was also high (He 0.832 to 0.843) and the inbreeding coefficient ranged from 0.061 in the old group to 0.078 in the intermediate group. The pairwise FST value was highest between the old group and the young group but the differentiation was only 0.005 (P=0.001). An analysis of molecular variance also showed that only 0.34% of the total genetic variance was explained by differences among age groups. This study found little evidence for a decrease in genetic diversity due to forestry practices and revealed high genetic diversity and low differentiation between the age groups, indicating a healthy population.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Univ., 2002. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.