Genomics Resources for North American Hardwoods

The hardwood forests of Eastern North America are complex biological systems, covering millions of acres.  These forests provide habitat and food for wildlife, stabilization of riparian zones, long-term carbon sequestration and other essential ecosystem services as well as wood fiber for human use.  Sustainability of these forests is increasingly threatened by exotic pests, diseases, invasive plants, climate change and fragmentation.  Researchers at seven universities are collaborating to develop genomic resources and genetic tools for a broad taxonomic distribution of hardwood tree species, including northern red oak (Quercus rubra), black walnut (Juglans nigra), white oak (Quercus alba), yellow poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera), sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua), honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos), sugar maple (Acer saccharum), blackgum (Nyssa sylvatica), and green ash (Fraxinus pennsylvannica).  We are producing expressed gene sequence databases, genetic markers, genetic linkage maps, and reference populations with an emphasis on tools for assessing genetic variation in growth and adaptation and responses to environmental stresses such as drought, heat, and air pollution.  These resources are being made available through the project website (www.hardwoodgenomics.org).  Sequence data will be deposited in GenBank, and the genetic linkage maps and associated marker data will be available at the Dendrome database (http://dendrome.ucdavis.edu/). We are targeting these resources to forest science, genetics, ecology and plant evolution researchers,  and others addressing forest health issues and management of hardwood forest ecosystems,.  This project is supported by The Schatz Center for Tree Molecular genetics at Penn State University, and grant # TRPGR IOS-1025974 from the National Science Foundation’s Plant Genome Research Program.