Aspectual Fertility Variation and Its Effect on Gene Diversity of Seeds in Natural Stands of Taurus Cedar (Cedrus libani A. Rich.).

Nilüfer Yazici,Nebi Bilir

doi:10.1155/2017/2960624

Abstract

There are many environmental and biological factors on forestry practices as known. Aspect called as slope faces is one of the most important environmental factors in these practices because of its easy application for managers. Fertility variation defined as an individual ability to give progeny and gene diversity estimated based on effective number of parents were investigated as the proportion of numbers of cones counted from individuals in natural stands sampled aspectual of Taurus cedar (Cedrus libani A. Rich.) for three consecutive years. The averages of cone number were 19.4, 47.2, and 75.5 for the years. It was the highest in flat (23.5) for 2013, in south (92.1) for 2014, and in flat (95.7) for 2015, while it was lowest in south (16.3), in east (18.2), and in north (39.4) for the years, respectively. Significant correlations (p ≤ 0.01) were estimated among years for cone production in polled aspect. Estimated fertility variations changed for the years and stands. It could be generally acceptable level for typical natural stands except of west of 2014. Fertility variations were 1.55, 3.05, and 1.64 in polled stands for the years. Gene diversity was 0.99 for the years in polled stands. North aspect could be taken into consideration in establishment and selection of seed sources and gene conservation areas based on fertility variation and gene diversity.

Highlights

There are many environmental and biological factors on forestry practices
Aspect is a criterion in selection and establishment of seed sources and selection of gene conservation areas [1] and their managements
The main objective of the present study is to evaluate the fertility variation in selected aspectual natural stands of Taurus cedar basis of cone production over a period of three

Summary

Introduction

There are many environmental (i.e., soil properties, climate, altitude, aspect, and slope) and biological (i.e., genetic structure of population or individual plant) factors on forestry practices. Aspect defining the compass direction that a slope faces is one of the most important environmental factors because of its easy application and cheap determination for these practices such as silvicultural, watershed, and other forestry operations for managers because of its effect on soil and forest formation and habitat. Estimation of fertility variation among genotypes is one of the important tools used in different purposes such as gene conservation, seed production programs, managing forest genetic resources, and evolutional and genetic management of populations for plant breeding [2, 6,7,8] based on sustainable forestry. While many studies (most of them on estimation practices) have been carried out on fertility variation (e.g., [4, 9,10,11,12,13,14]), environmental studies on fertility variation and its related parameters (i.e., effective number of parents and gene diversity) are very limited [2, 3]

Objectives

Methods

Results