National Board of Forestry, Jönköping, Sweden

The responsibility for forest gene conservation and genetic resources management was mandated to the National Board of Forestry in the early 1980s. The National Board of Forestry constitutes the forestry technical body of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

Norway spruce corresponds to half of the Swedish forest land and is of obvious importance for the entire forest management in Sweden. Therefore, Norway spruce became some time ago a target species for the genetic conservation activities at the national level. Besides the overall responsibility, the field activities of the forest tree genebank have been aiming at the maintenance of evolutionary processes with a minimum of human intervention in the genetic structures. These actions are complemented by the multiple breeding population concept, as well as national parks and national reserves. Legislation concerning silviculture and forest management (seed sources, restriction on clonal forestry, import regulations, etc.) plays an imporant role with regard to the conservation and use of Norway spruce genetic resources.

In the mast year of 1983 a systematic collection of seed material took place. In a regular distribution pattern, 75 provenances were collected. More than 100 mother trees per collected provenance were used. Phenological studies were carried out. A clear clinal variation was found for the provenances north of the 60º latitude. To the south of this latitude, an indistinct pattern was found.

Since the last glacial period the re-colonization of Norway spruce on the Scandinavian peninsula mainly came from the northeast. This assumption is also supported by the clinal variation found in the collected material mentioned above.

Concerning the south of Sweden, studies by Lagercrantz and Ryman with isoenzymes suggest the patterns and paths of geneflow also from the south into the Scandinavian peninsula. We know that introduction of the species by humans has taken place during the last two centuries to the south of Sweden. Whether evolutionary or anthropogenic, the indistinct pattern of the south is a reality to take into account.

The plantations and clonal archives are open to scientists or others with interest in evolution and population structures. The clonal archives are presently studied by geneticists to put more light on the discussion of re-colonization pattern in the south of Sweden.

One important step in this dynamic conservation is the generation shifts. The ideal is open-pollination without introduced pollen. The unfortunate situation occurs that human intervention in the generation shift of the genebank by, e.g. controlled pollination, is needed. This intervention's impact in terms of selection and other factors should, however, be kept to a minimum.

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