Abstract: I surveyed seedlings grown from seeds extracted from the cones of baldcypress (Taxodium distichum) and pondcypress (Taxodium ascendens)trees to determine the potential for cross-pollination.Two parent trees were sampled from populations that are less than 1.5 miles apart near Walterboro, SC. A PCR-RFLP analysis was conducted of a single nucleotide polymorphism in the trnC-ycf6 intergenic spacer region of the chloroplast that was identified by Lickey (unpubl.) as a putative diagnostic character separating baldcypress and pondcypress. The haplotypes of 175 seedlings originating from the two baldcypress parents and 92 seedlings originating from the two pondcypress parents were compared to the haplotypes of each parent. Preliminary data confirms that chloroplasts are inherited through the pollen in Taxodium, and that baldcypress haplotypes can be found in some pondcypress seedlings and vice versa.
Great work, thank you for sharing!
Really cool project, Joshua and Dr. Lickey. I was not aware that conifer pollen has chloroplast DNA , which can lead to gene flow between closely related species. Keep up the good work.