Abstract
Genetic parameters for growth, stem straightness, pilodyn penetration, relative bark thickness and survival were estimated in a base-population of five open-pollinated provenance/progeny trials of Eucalyptus viminalis. The trials, located in northern, central and southern Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, comprised 148 open-pollinated families from 13 Australian native provenances and eight local Argentinean seedlots. The Australian native provenances come from a limited range of the natural distribution. Overall survival, based on the latest assessment of each trial, was 62.4%. Single-site analyses showed that statistically significant provenances differences (p < 0.05) for at least one of the studied traits in three out of the five trials analyzed. The local land race performed inconsistently in this study. The average narrow-sense individual-tree heritability estimate \( \left( {{{\hat{h}}^2}} \right) \) was 0.27 for diameter and 0.17 for total height. Values of \( {\hat{h}^2} \) also increased with age. Pilodyn penetration, assessed at only one site, was more heritable \( \left( {{{\hat{h}}^2} = 0.32} \right) \) than the average of growth traits. Estimated individual-tree heritabilities were moderate to low for stem straightness (average of 0.20) and relative bark thickness (0.16). The estimated additive genetic correlations \( \left( {{{{r}}_{{A}}}} \right) \) between diameter and height were consistently high and positive (\( {{r}_{^A}} \)average of 0.90). High additive genetic correlations were observed between growth variables and pilodyn penetration (\( {{r}_{^A}} \)average of 0.58). Relative bark thickness showed a negative correlation with diameter \( \left( {{{{r}}_{^A}} = - 0.39} \right) \) and height \( \left( {{{{r}}_{^A}} = - 0.51} \right) \). The average estimated additive genetic correlation between sites was high for diameter (0.67). The implications of all these parameter estimates for genetic improvement of E. viminalis in Argentina are discussed.
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Acknowledgements
Trials and data collection were partially supported by the Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria and the Proyecto Forestal de Desarrollo. Thanks are due to all the landowner associated with field trials involved in this study. Particular thanks to Pedro Gelid for help in establishing, maintaining, and assessing the trials. The authors are grateful to Vicente Nakama, Adelqui Alfieri, Ricardo Moschini, and Graciela Cazenave from the Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria, for providing information about the soil and climate of the trial sites. Finally, we also wish to thank Alvin Yanchuk and Professor Brad Potts for their comments and suggestions and to the Associate Editor Dr. R. Burdon and two anonymous referees for their insightful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.
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Cappa, E.P., Pathauer, P.S. & Lopez, G.A. Provenance variation and genetic parameters of Eucalyptus viminalis in Argentina. Tree Genetics & Genomes 6, 981–994 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-010-0307-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-010-0307-9