Abstract
The widespread European forest tree Fagus sylvatica L. is of great importance for forest management. However, information about seed dispersal is still very rare, though important for harvesting strategies and later on seed source identification. We refined a DNA fingerprinting method for beech nut shells in order to directly assign dispersed seeds to their mother trees. A pilot study was conducted in two beech stands in Germany where leaves of the adult trees and the exocarp of dispersed seeds were fingerprinted at six nSSR loci. While one stand was randomly analysed for adults and dispersed seeds the other was systematically investigated following common harvesting procedures. Imitating the typical net harvesting strategy, seeds were collected beneath 19 adult trees. Exocarp genotyping revealed that on average three different mother trees contributed to a sample of five or six seeds collected beneath a single adult tree. Of the identified mother trees most were located within a radius of 15 m from the sampling point. The repeated pattern of seed dispersal within a short distance constitutes the basis for a straightforward strategy for the assignment of seed lots to a seed source stand. This strategy is based on the matching of individual genotypes without the necessity for a full inventory of the putative source stand. Additionally, we provide allelic ladders of five nSSR loci for standardization among laboratories.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Joachim Heyder of the Landesbetrieb Wald und Holz, NRW, Außenstelle Arnsberg-Obereimer and to Manfred Gertz of the Forestry Department Siegen-Wittgenstein for providing help and information about the analysed stands. Furthermore, we thank Martin Rogge of the Landesbetrieb Wald und Holz, NRW, Außenstelle Arnsberg-Obereimer for contributing his knowledge and experience in seed source control procedures. This study was co-financed by the Ministry of Nature Conservation, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, North-Rhine Westfalia, Germany. The construction of allelic ladders was co-financed by the EU Network of Excellence EVOLTREE.
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Communicated by R. Matyssek.
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Hasenkamp, N., Ziegenhagen, B., Mengel, C. et al. Towards a DNA marker assisted seed source identification: a pilot study in European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.). Eur J Forest Res 130, 513–519 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-010-0439-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-010-0439-3