| Abstract: | Native Danish oak stands are fragmented and decreasing because of the extensive use of foreign seed sources. Therefore, the population structure of natural Danish oak stands was analysed by means of six polymorphic enzyme loci. A total of 17 stands of Quercus robur L. (including an ''outgroup'' sample from The Netherlands), seven Quercus petraea Matt.] Liebl. and two putative hybrid stands were included in the study. The average genetic diversity was similar for the two species as well as for the putative hybrid stands: 0.25 for Q. robur, 0.27 for Q. petraea and 0.26 for the hybrid stands. The genotypic proportions at two (Pgm and Mnr) of the six loci showed many significant deviations from Hardy-Weinberg expectations, always with an excess of homozygotes, whereas the remaining four loci accorded to Hardy-Weinberg proportions, suggesting a low level of inbreeding. The differentiation of the Q. petraea and Q. robur populations was quantified with Wright's F-statistics. The within-species component was low, 0.022, reflecting the wind-pollinated reproductive mode of the two species. The betweenspecies component was 10-fold higher, 0.235, indicating two separate groups. A phylogenetic tree estimated from allele frequencies also supported the presence of these two groups. Despite the two well-separated groups in the tree, it was not possible to assign all individuals to the species to which they supposedly belonged. In total, 10% of the Q. robur individuals and 14% of the Q. petraea individuals were assigned to the other species, suggesting a limited amount of introgression between the two species. |
