Abstract:

Compared to modern crops, forest trees have some inborn characteristics, such as long life span, gigantic size, and high genetic load, which make trees difficult to manipulate in genetics studies,and lead to the progress of their basic genetic studies lagging behind that of many other important organisms. The poor research basis is the major factor that hampers the proceeding of forest improvement programs. Molecular breeding is the key technology to overcome the long breeding cycle of forest trees. Identification and functional analysis of gene/genes underlying important traits are the preconditions for molecular breeding practice in tree species. With the fast development of life technologies, new hot topics are popping up in the basic studies of forest genetics and breeding. In this paper, we briefly introduce the progress of some hot topics in the basic studies for woody plants, including tree genome and functional genomics, linkage and association analyses, wood formation mechanisms, and molecular breeding. Although achievements from the relevant studies are not in practical applications yet, they will provide important technical storage for future tree breeding programs. We wish this review could help to accelerate the progress of the relevant studies.

Key words: Forest genetics and breeding, functional genomics, association analysis, wood formation, molecular breeding