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Development of biomarker for monitoring of pest-tolerant oaks in different climate zones (Eichen-Abwehr)
Project
Project code: 28WB411302
Contract period: 01.04.2017
- 31.03.2020
Budget: 233,234 Euro
Purpose of research: Applied research
Keywords: forestry, hardwood, forest protection, climate (climate relevance, climate protection, climate change), oak, forest genetics, silviculture
The upcoming climate change will be a challenge for a proper and sustainable forestry management in Germany. Besides an increase of extreme weather events as drought and flooding, especially calamities of insects immigrate from Eastern and Southern Europe is predicted. Thereby, the already critical state of health of oak forests will deteriorate because oaks are already the tree genus with the highest number of feeding insects. Therefore, the aim of the outlined project is an analysis of the distribution of tolerant and susceptible oaks against insect feeding following a climate gradient in Germany using new developed biomarkers. For this purpose initially candidate genes and metabolites responsible for constitutive and induced defence response will be identified by quantitative transcriptomics and metabolomics. Based on this, molecular and biochemical markers will be developed for application as easy to handle test methods. First, the newly developed biomarkers will be used for an inventory of the tolerant and susceptible oaks against insect feeding in different climate zones in Germany. This data will facilitate reliable projections for the danger of oaks during climate change to work out silvicultural recommendations for cultivation of oaks with an increased tolerance in certain climatic zones. To finally derive cultivation recommendations for the important tree species oak, the newly developed markers should be in future applied for early selection of oaks with a high tolerance against insect feeding and for characterisation of licensed oak seed populations due to their level of tolerance.
Section overview
Subjects
- Crop Protection
- Silviculture
- Forest genetics
- Climate Change
Funding programme
Excutive institution
Helmholtz Zentrum München, GmbH German Research Center for Environmental Health (GSF)