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Detection and stability of quantitative trait loci (QTL) in Eucalyptus globulus

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Abstract

Eucalyptus globulus Labill. ssp. globulus is an important tree species for the pulp and paper industry, and several breeding programmes throughout the world are striving to improve key traits such as growth and wood density. This study aimed to detect quantitative trait loci (QTL) for growth, wood density, relative bark thickness and early flowering in a single full-sib E. globulus family grown across seven sites. Growth was measured a number of times over a 6-year period, enabling temporal stability of growth QTL to be studied. Ten putative QTL (LOD > 2.0) were detected in the single family, which was of moderate size. Based on permutations of the trait data, six of these QTL were significant at the experimentwise significance level of 0.1 for at least one of the four models implemented in analysis to remove site effects. For wood density, two putative QTL explained 20% of the variance for the trait, indicating that a small number of QTL might explain a reasonable proportion of the trait variance. One of these QTL was found to be independent of QTL for growth whereas the second QTL co-segregated with a QTL for relative incremental growth. The marker nearest to this QTL was associated with fast growth but low wood density. A putative growth QTL at year 6 was found to be relatively stable across ages. In addition, it was found that residuals from models based on measurements from across all families across all sites in the trial detected QTL with greater experimentwise significance.

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Acknowledgment

CSIRO Forestry and Forest Products/North Forest Products (now Gunns Ltd) established the trials used in this study. We thank Paul Tilyard for assistance with collection of phenotypic data and acknowledge the financial assistance of the Australian Research Council (grant LP0453704).

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Author notes

  1. Peter C. Bundock

    Present address: Centre for Plant Conservation Genetics, Southern Cross University, P.O. Box 157, Lismore, NSW, 2480, Australia

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cooperative Research Centre for Forestry and School of Plant Science, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 55, Hobart, TAS, 7001, Australia

    Peter C. Bundock, Brad M. Potts & René E. Vaillancourt

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  1. Peter C. Bundock
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  2. Brad M. Potts
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  3. René E. Vaillancourt
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Correspondence to Peter C. Bundock.

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Communicated by Y. Tsumura

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Bundock, P.C., Potts, B.M. & Vaillancourt, R.E. Detection and stability of quantitative trait loci (QTL) in Eucalyptus globulus . Tree Genetics & Genomes 4, 85–95 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-007-0090-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-007-0090-4

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