2018 ASHS Annual Conference

Corylus americana, the American hazelnut, is native to a wide area of land in eastern North America. It is resistant to the disease eastern filbert blight (EFB) caused by the fungus Anisogramma anomala, and is cross-compatible to the EFB-susceptible cultivated European hazelnut, Corylus avellana. Rutgers University has amassed a diverse collection of wild American hazelnuts, comprising 1900 seedlings from 126 individual seed lots spanning 23 states and one Canadian province. In this study, variation of chloroplast haplotypes in a large subset of the collection were determined in an effort to better understand population structure and associated evolutionary and post-glacial migration history of the native hazelnut. In total, 379 individuals from 23 states were included and compared to 20 reference accessions of European hazelnut that span a significant subset of known genetic diversity in Corylus. Sequences from eight different regions of the chloroplast were examined, consisting of: atpI-rps2, ndhK-ndhC, psaA-trnS, rpoB-rpoC1, trnC-trnD, trnH-trnK, trnL-rpl32, and trnV-rbcL. DNA was extracted using a Qiagen DNEasy Plant Kit protocol and quantified using a NanoDrop spectrophotometer. Sanger sequencing was performed at Rutgers University. The data will be used to create an unweighted pair group method using arithmetic averages dendrogram and STRUCTURE diagram to visualize results. A minimum spanning tree based on a parsimony model, and a maximum likelihood phylogeny based on a DNA evolution model will be used to interpret distinct lineages across the native range. Results including haplotype distributions, inferred post-glacial migration patterns, minimum spanning network, and phylogenetic analysis will be presented.