Chloroplast SNP-marker as powerful tool for differentiation of Populus species in reliable poplar breeding and barcoding approaches

Background The genus Populus is one of the world’s most important tree genera. High growth rates, particularly of some interspecies hybrids, and a broad range of applicability from wood and paper to energy production, led to their widespread cultivation in Europe and North America. For the use in SRCs (short rotation coppices), in particular interspecies-hybrids are well suited because of their superior growth and advanced resistance traits. However, Populus hybrids are often morphologically extreme variable and can show either more criteria of the one or the other parental species. Thus, species identification within the genus Populus using morphological characters can sometimes be difficult. Furthermore, systematically performed records during breeding or vegetative propagation of poplar hybrids and/or clones are not available to date. For breeding activities with the priority of registration of new high-efficiency clones, clear species identification is inevitably necessary. Therefore, we evaluate the usability of already published plant barcoding regions (“barcoding”; Barcode of Life [http:// www.barcodeoflife.org/]) for their efficacy to differentiate seven often used poplar species. We present data on amplification success of the barcoding regions by using the already published primers. Moreover, novel primers were established in promising chloroplast regions to differentiate Populus species.