Poster: Ecophysiology

Abs # 6: Determining parent-offspring distances in oak forests through DNA fingerprinting

Presenter:	Hunsinger, James , ssaiyan99@msn.com
Authors	Hunsinger, James  (A)   Cao, Jason  (A)   Carlson, John E (C)   Delva, Fritz  (A)   Genna, Teresa  (A)   Hakim, Roman  (A)   Kisel, Mark J (A)   Layer, Drew W (A)   Frederick, Douglas M (A)   Leptuck, Tiffany L (A)   Marking, Holly J (C)   McBrearty, Ashley M (A)   McEuen, Amy  (A)   Shafqat, Mohammad S (A)   Smallwood, Peter  (B)   Steele, Michael  (A)   Terzaghi, Damon  (D) (A)  Terzaghi, William  (A)
Affiliations:	(A): Wilkes University (B): University of Richmond (C): Pennsylvania State University (D): Willamette University

We hypothesized that seedlings from the red oak subgenera (Erythrobalanus) should be widely dispersed whereas white oak seedlings (subgenera Quercus) should be clumped near the parent tree because squirrels move red oak acorns greater distances than white oak acorns. To test this hypothesis we have used DNA fingerprinting. We have extracted DNA from 1576 seedlings and 1290 adult trees at 4 sites: 2 in Pennsylvania, and one each in Maryland and Indiana. We have identified ten primer pairs that amplify polymorphic STRs in Quercus alba, Q. prinus, Q. velutina and Q. rubra. At the first site the red oak group is substantially more genetically diverse than the white oak group. For this site, we have successfully matched 62 red oak seedlings and 20 white oak seedlings to at least one of their parent trees. Contrary to our hypothesis, distances of white oak seedlings to their parents appear to be as great (or greater) than red oak seedlings. We are currently determining whether DNA fingerprints of unmatched seedlings can definitively exclude nearby trees thus suggesting a high degree of long distance seedling establishment.