What can nuclear microsatellites tell us about maritime pine genetic resources conservation and provenance certification strategies?

Maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Ait.) is the first conifer used for reforestation in France and now covers 2.4 million ha of the Iberian Peninsula. In order to preserve the genetic resources of this economically and ecologically important species prior knowledge of the distribution of genetic diversity is needed. In this paper, a genetic diversity study was performed using nuclear simple sequence repeats (SSRs or microsatellites). Classical parameters of diversity (allelic richness and heterozygosity) and differentiation were estimated for 47 populations of P. pinaster. Most of the populations (40) were collected in France, six populations were also collected in the Iberian Peninsula and one Moroccan population was also included in the study. The population genetic parameters indicated that some populations should be a focus of conservation efforts (higher level of diversity, higher allelic richness and presence of rare alleles). A diagnostic test for sample origin was developed to distinguish Corsican from Landes populations.