A Preliminary Genetic Analysis of Hybrid Oaks in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah

Oak trees play a vital role in the ecosystem of the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, providing both food and shelter for numerous organisms. Most of the Wasatch Oaks are Quercus gambelii (deciduous scrub oaks), shedding their leaves during the harsh high elevation winters. There are several unexpected evergreen oaks which appear to be hybrids of the Wasatch scrub oaks and the evergreen oak, Quercus turbinella (live oaks), primarily located in Southern Utah. The suspected hybrids were presumably present prior to a rapid decrease in winter temperatures of the area several thousands of years ago, resulting in several hybrids live oaks able to withstand the cold climate that other evergreen oaks physically could not. We selected common microsatellites of the oak genome were selected from previous studies done on European oaks and six RAPD primers were selected from a study evaluating Q. gambelii. Several primers have shown conservation of PCR fragments throughout the gambelii as well as some which appear in the suspected hybrids also. Although there are not enough data to determine absolute genetic relatedness, there are several primers, including MSQ13 and RAPD 290, which show a relationship that is not coincidence.