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Genetic parameters for growth and wood mechanical properties in Eucalyptus cloeziana F. Muell.

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Abstract

Genetic parameters for wood mechanical properties and their correlations with growth traits are not well established in the important tree genus Eucalyptus L’Hér. Based on a progeny trial of 115 open-pollinated families of Eucalyptus cloeziana F. Muell., this study estimated the heritability and trait–trait correlations for growth, including height (H), diameter at breast height (D) and volume (V), and wood mechanical traits, including basic density (BD), green density (GD), modulus of elasticity (MOE), modulus of rupture (MOR) and parallel-to-grain compressive strength (σc). Narrow-sense heritability (h 2 i ) ranged from 0.04 to 0.35 for growth across ages 0.5–9.5 years and from 0.06 to 0.24 for wood mechanical properties at age 9.5, indicating low to moderate magnitude of additive genetic control of these traits. Phenotypic (r p ) and additive genetic (r g ) correlations at the final age of 9.5 years were consistently significantly positive between growth traits and mostly significantly positive between wood mechanical traits, while r p and r g were small and adversely significant, respectively, between the two types of traits, posing a challenge for concomitant improvement of growth and wood traits. In addition, r p and r g coefficients between age 9.5 and earlier years for each of the growth traits H, D and V were all positively significant (except for H 2.5) and had a generally increasing trend with age, suggesting the possibility of early selection.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by grants from Guangxi Department of Forestry (2014-4, 2014-35 & 2015-6) and Key Laboratory of State Forestry Administration on Central South Fast-growing Timber Cultivation (14-A-01-01). The authors thank Guicheng Yu, Jun Wu, Jianfan Li, Yaomei Bin, Shidong Chen, Lu Li, Guanglan Huang and Xi Sun from Yulin Forestry Research Institute for kind assistance in field trial establishment, maintenance and investigation as well as wood sample collection. Thanks are also due to Jiachun Lin and Zhaoyuan Zhang from Guangxi Forestry Research Institute for valuable cooperation in field trial investigation, wood sample collection and standard measurement. We are grateful to John Turnbull for regional grouping of the provenances, Kevin Harding for critical reading of an earlier version of the manuscript and the two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Tree Genetics and Breeding, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Xiangshan Road, Beijing, 100091, China

    Changrong Li & Siming Gan

  2. Key Laboratory of State Forestry Administration on Tropical Forestry, Research Institute of Tropical Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, 682 Guangshan 1 Road, Guangzhou, 510520, China

    Changrong Li, Qijie Weng, Mei Li, Changpin Zhou, Shengkan Chen & Siming Gan

  3. Key Laboratory of State Forestry Administration on Central South Fast-growing Timber Cultivation and Guangxi Key Laboratory of Superior Timber Trees Resource Cultivation, Guangxi Forestry Research Institute, 23 Yongwu Road, Nanning, 530002, China

    Changrong Li, Jian-Bo Chen, Wei Zhou, Dongqiang Guo, Cuixiang Lu & Dongyun Xiang

  4. Yulin Forestry Research Institute, Guihe, Rongxi Town, Rongxian, 537501, China

    Jian-Cheng Chen

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  1. Changrong Li
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Correspondence to Siming Gan.

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Li, C., Weng, Q., Chen, JB. et al. Genetic parameters for growth and wood mechanical properties in Eucalyptus cloeziana F. Muell.. New Forests 48, 33–49 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11056-016-9554-4

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