Gene flow and sex ratio of Populus euphratica Oliv. floodplain forests at the Tarim River, Xinjiang, NW China

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In extension of a previous project dedicated to study the genetic diversity of the so-called Tugai forests in the extremely arid Tarim basin of Chinas Xinjiang province, we want to investigate reproductive biology and the performance of sexes in Populus euphratica, as well as the gene flow between stands to explain the high degree of genetic diversity distributed within stands. This should allow deriving sound recommendations for a conservation strategy of the Tugai forests. In addition, we want to extent the existing body of data on mapped and genotyped old-growth stands to derive a sex aggregation index and show its usefulness for estimating stand clonality by comparison with the clonality index derived from microsatellite genotyping. Due to a change of methods for genotyping (from AFLP to a high-throughput microsatellite multiplex PCR) we saved money to genotype three more stands. This will provide consumables for one Ph.D. student (currently payed by a scholarship from the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) to complete her Ph.D. thesis.