The overall goal of this project is to discover the genetic variation that underlies the differences among pine species and among individuals within a single species. There are two major goals: (1) to develop bioinformatic, genomic and database resources for Pinaceae comparative genomics and (2) to understand the evolution of genetic diversity both within and between species using the family Pinaceae. The family Pinaceae is one of eight families of the order Coniferales (conifers) and includes 10 genera and ~220 species, several of economic importance.
Project outcomes will include DNA sequences of 1200 candidate genes in eight conifer species: slash pine (Pinus elliottii), Monterey Pine (P. radiata), maritime pine (P. pinaster), Scots pine (P. sylvestris), sugar pine (P. lambertiana), Norway spruce (Picea abies), Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), and Sugi (Cryptomeria japonica) and genetic markers. These species are targets of other genome projects throughout the world and are important both economically and ecologically. This project will enable a genome-wide investigation of adaptive evolution in a major plant group, the Pinaceae. The sequence data obtained from this project will also provide a unique and exciting opportunity to test newly developed theory for the study of adaptive evolution.
Access to project outcomes Sequence data and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data will be deposited immediately into GenBank (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) and TreeGenes (http://dendrome.ucdavis.edu/treegenes/). Outreach resources will be made available through TreeGenes and the Plant Genome Research Program Outreach Portal (PGROP: www.plantgdb.org/pgrop/pgrop.php).
