Molecular markers in population genetics of forest trees

Rapid progress is being made in many areas of forest population genetics ow ing to the newly available molecular techniques and the fast growth of geno mic and sequence data. This paper reviews the currently available genetic m arkers and their applications in studies on gene diversity, population stru cture and differentiation, gene flow, introgression, phylogeny and gene evo lution. Various marker-based population analyses have highlighted the evolu tionary history of many tree species. However, up to now, genetic markers h ave not fulfilled the expectations for studies on the adaptive variation an d the effects of natural selection on forest tree populations. Studies base d on integrated and extensive genome sampling, especially the coding region s of the genome, in combination with adaptive traits can potentially improv e this situation. This would provide us with a comprehensive knowledge of t he evolutionary mechanisms shaping the population changes, both adaptive an d neutral.