Genetic Diversity between Two South Florida Slash Pine Populations

South Florida slash pines provide an important microhabitat for some native Florida species, however, less than 1% of the original slash pine forest remains due to deforestation and hurricanes (DERM, 1995). This population decline makes it essential to study the genetic diversity of the remaining pine forest. Therefore, in this study we tested the hypothesis that geographic isolation has led to genetic diversity between two south Florida sites. We predicted that the genetic structure revealed by microsatellite loci would be different between the two populations. We went to two sites to collect South Florida slash pine leaf samples, extracted DNA, and genotyped it to identify the microsatellite alleles in each population. One microsatellite locus has alleles that differ between the two sites, but the other two loci have shared alleles. Therefore, we have some evidence that genetic diversity exists in South Florida slash pines, which might be due to geographic isolation. However, shared alleles suggest that some wind dispersal of pollen and/or bird dispersal of seeds may be allowing some tree DNA to travel, indicating the genetic connectivity between the two collection sites.