Author
Listed:
- Lidija Bitz
(Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Production systems/Plant genetics, Myllytie 1, FI-31600 Jokioinen, Finland)
- Maarit Heinonen
(Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Production systems/Plant genetics, Myllytie 1, FI-31600 Jokioinen, Finland)
- Sirpa Moisander
(Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Production systems/Plant genetics, Myllytie 1, FI-31600 Jokioinen, Finland)
- Pirjo Tanhuanpää
(Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Production systems/Plant genetics, Myllytie 1, FI-31600 Jokioinen, Finland)
- Jukka Sarvarinne
(Finnish Dendrological Society, Botanical Museum, Box 7, University of Helsinki, FIN-00014 Helsinki, Finland)
Abstract
European wild apple ( Malus sylvestris L.) is the only Malus wild species native to Europe which is a relative of cultivated apples ( Malus × domestica Borkh.). It grows on forests’ edges, farmland hedges, and marginal sites; by living in those scattered meta-populations, it is exposed to genetic erosion in relation to hybridization and habitat degradation. In Finland, it grows at the northern edge of its distribution in Europe and is considered as a near-threatened taxon requiring urgent conservation. In order to evaluate the molecular genetic diversity of M. sylvestris, five populations including 43 trees were analyzed using 15 microsatellite markers. Additionally, a similar number of samples from cultivated apples, which are common to the same region, was included in order to estimate gene diversity gaps and give an insight into putative hybridization. European wild apple in Finland proved to be populationally structured, and seems not to be threatened by introgression events from its cultivated relative. They were all separated into different clusters, except for one individual. However, urgent conservation is indeed needed, especially due to the very low total number of trees (four) in some of the analyzed populations. These populations should be restored in order to enable permanent access to the wild relatives’ diversity, as they might be a critical source of gene variants for future needs.
Suggested Citation
Lidija Bitz & Maarit Heinonen & Sirpa Moisander & Pirjo Tanhuanpää & Jukka Sarvarinne, 2019.
"Differential Allelic Richness between Malus sylvestris L. and Malus × domestica Borkh. from Finland as a Measure of Genetic Loss,"
Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-16, December.
Handle:
RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:24:p:6949-:d:294720
Download full text from publisher
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:24:p:6949-:d:294720. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.