Abstract
Rapid climatic changes may signifiantly affect the regulation of the rhytmicity of growth and winter dormancy in forest trees and other perennial species of the temperate zone. The growth potential and winter survival of such species are directly related to proper adaptation to the prevailing climatic conditions. This is primarily based on a close co-ordination of growth and dormancy with the temperature climate. The light climate is known to play an important role in regulating bud set before the winter and temperature is known to be an important determinant of dormancy release and bud break. The temperature appears also to affect the induction and depth of dormancy, but little data on this is available. Knowledge of the significance of the interaction between the temperature and the light climate in climatic adaptation is scarce, although such interactions may explain some of the annual variation in dormancy-related processes in nature. The physiological and molecular mechanisms underlying climatic adaptation are also largely unknown. Such knowledge is of prime importance in understanding the responses of trees and other plants to a changing climate and will contribute to an understanding of the evolution of climatic adaptation. The project aims at studying the effects of temperature and the interaction between temperature and photoperiod in regulation of dormancy and growth rhytms in forest trees. The project also aims at identifying physiological and molecular mechanisms involved in the climatic adaptation by identifying and studying specific genes involved in this in Norway spruce by the use of microarray and real-time PCR technology, as well as by the use of transgenic plants as tools.
Norway