Newsletter January 00
These newsletters are distributed to a mainly domestic mailing list of individuals who expressed an interest in the subjects treated by Dag Lindgren. This Newsletter is enclosed in .htm format, and an URL address to this Newsletter is:
http://daglindgren.upsc.se/Papers/Newsletters/Newsletter_January00.htm
Happy New Millennium!!
. For many of you this Newsletter is the beginning of your New Professional Millennium and the first professional issue you deal with. I hope you find it an appropriate start! Now it seems you get 1000 years more to complete whatever you did not complete in the previous Millennium. Hopefully this message does not carry some Y2k-creep to you. Till now it seems that the bug and virus makers have not succeeded well.Web-sites
The web-sites I manage have changed server (this is the desire of higher echelons of our decision hierarchy) and structure. I do not intend to manage pages at the servers Linne or Mendel (probably the servers will continue operation with Alfred Szmidt as responsible manager). Thus, paths involving Linne or Mendel relating to my web-sites are probably outdated, they will not be maintained, and they are planned to be taken out of operation in the foreseeable future. Thus probably some links I have given in former Newsletter will not work any more. I used this opportunity to restructure the website a bit. I thought this was an appropriate moment to inaugurate the new refreshed site. My web-structures can now be approached trough the structure at:
It can be reached starting from our department's home page at http://www.genfys.slu.se , this page can be reached starting from the SLU or Faculty homepages.
The new address to "Tree Breeding Tools" ("TBT", I sometimes called it "Forest Tree Breeding Tools" before, but TBT is shorter) is
http://daglindgren.upsc.se/Breed_Home_Page/Breeding_Tools_Current_HomePage.htm
and the new address to my Home Page is
http://daglindgren.upsc.se/DagL_HomePage_related_current_files/DagL_Current_HomePage.htm
On TBT you can find programs relating to group coancestry; group merit; status number; group merit selection; effective population number of seed orchard crops; genetic management of seed orchards; selection intensity and other normal distribution parameters; gene diversity and gain as function of breeding strategy, genetic parameters, cost and time in short term breeding; night-length, temperature and heat sums etc. etc. There are files, which try to instruct about group coancestry calculations and help to combine gain and gene diversity better in breeding programs.
There are also different documents, which may help to a better tree breeding in different ways. There are some published articles. However, for copy-right reasons the most interesting are not there.
Post-graduated education
For those interested in post graduated education (own or others) an interesting entry is the following site (it is relevant also for our faculty).
http://www-foutb.jltfak.slu.se/
Karl-Anders Högberg has presented a lic thesis "Effects of early selection on vegetatively propagated Norway spruce".
Johan Westin, who works at SkogForsk Sävar as tree breeder, will present his PhD thesis...
DISPUTATION I SKOGLIG VÄXTFYSIOLOGI
Härmed tillkännages att jägmästare Johan Westin, Inst för skoglig genetik
och växtfysiologi vid SLU i Umeå, kommer att disputera för skoglig
doktorsexamen fredagen den 14 januari 2000, kl 13.00 i Hörsal Björken, SLU
i Umeå, på en avhandling med titeln: Growth Rythm and Frost Hardiness Dynamics in Norway Spruce (Picea abies
(L.) Karst.)
Opponent är Dr William Carlson, Weyerhaeuser Company, Tacoma, Washington, USA.
Huvudhandledare är Jan-Erik Hällgren och biträdande handledare L-G Sundblad.
The threat from EU to the Swedish forest genetic resources reduced!
There are EU (European Union) directives which has to be implemented in Sweden. For practical forest genetics the most relevant directive is from 1966. Sweden was given an exception from that till beginning of 2000 when Sweden entered EU. The 15th of December 1999 the agricultural ministers of EU have accepted a new directive. This means in practice that the change of rules will have less and less severe effects on what we do in Sweden than I was afraid of. The time we have to adapt to the directive will be longer, out typical conifer stand seeds will be approved; our typical seed orchard seeds will be approved; genetic testing will be accepted as we generally do it. We will have to define areas of origin and the official seed orchard register will require more information. The consequences of the needed actions are probably small and most current routines will not be much affected and there seem to be less constraints against doing sensible things than in the earlier directives. I guess that much of the credit for this outcome, which could have been much worse for future Swedish Forests, ought to be given to Lennart Ackzell. Provided me guess is correct, I hereby give Lennart a lot of electronic roses with magnificent appearance and lovely smell. This does not mean that I subscribe to a system, which makes us dependent on the good will and competence of people like Lennart, and other countries which have not access to the corresponding competence could suffer more from the new directives. Still I fare that the focus on EU will prevent sensible actions initiated within Sweden.
Nordic forest genetics and tree breeders annual meeting year 2000
FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT
SNS meeting "Genetics, breeding and conservation of broad-leaved tree species"
April 7-9, 2000, Lithuanian Forest Research Institute, Kaunas, Lithuania
The meeting will start in the morning the 7th of April and will end in the evening, the 9th of April 2000.
Location of the meeting Hotel "Santakos viesbutis", Kaunas and Department of Forest Genetics and Reforestation, Lithuanian Forest Research Institute, Girionys, Kaunas district, Lithuania.
The topic of the meeting will cover the following sub-sections: (1) Marker genetics in broad-leaved species, (2) Quantitative variation in broad-leaved species, (3) Breeding of broad-leaved species, (4) Gene conservation of broad-leaved species. Invited speakers will give overviews on the state of art in the above mentioned areas.
Voluntary oral or poster presentations on the above mentioned topics are welcome. The preliminary programme is the following:
April 6 - Arrivals (to Vilnius airport or Kaunas (Karmelava) airport). If possible, excursion to downtown of Vilnius. All the participants are expected to arrive during this day.
April 7
- Invited speakers, voluntary presentations (in conference hall in the Hotel ). Short tour to Kaunas, welcome dinner.April 8
- Full-day study tour - with emphasis on natural hardwood stands in Lithuania (100-150 km. to the west from Kaunas).April 9
- Voluntary oral and poster presentations, business meeting (in conference hall of the Lithuanian Forest Research Institute), farewell dinner.April 10
- Departure. If possible, excursion to downtown Vilnius.Arrivals: The flights may be booked to Vilnius (the main airport in Lithuania located 100 km apart from the meeting's place) or preferably to Kaunas (located about 20 km from the meeting's place). The organisers will meet all of the participants at the airports (either Vilnius or Kaunas).
Proceedings from the meeting are planned to be published.
We would like to get your preliminary registration by the 1st of February, 2000. Please indicate the date and time of your arrival and departure as well as whether you wish to give a voluntary oral or poster presentation and other information. (see below)
The cost of lodging (with breakfast) from mid-day of April the 6th to mid-day of April the 10th is 2200 SEK per person (4 days, 550 SEK a day). The lodging costs shall be paid by each participant individually at the time of arrival to the hotel (all the major credit cards are accepted).
The participation fee (that will cover lunch, dinners, refreshments, and some other expenses) is 500 SEK per person. Conference fee should be paid in cash at the beginning of the meeting or in advance to a bank account, which will be indicated later with the 2nd announcement.
______________________________________________________________
Preliminary registration form
Name
Organisation .
Address ..
Telephone
Fax .
Title of invited presentation .
Title of voluntary presentation .
Title of poster presentation ..
Date and time of your arrival, flight Nr .
Airport of arrival
Date and time of your departure, flight Nr .
Airport of departure
Hotel reservations
Please indicate if you are going to share the room with someone yes no
Accompanying person (spouses) yes no
Please indicate whether accompanying person (spouses) is going to share the room with you.
yes no
_________________________________________________________________________
Please complete the form and return latest by February 1, 2000 to Alfas Pliura, Lithuanian Forest Research Institute, fax (370 7)547446 / e-mail address:
genetsk@mi.ltAddresses:
Hotel Santakos viesbutis (Best Western, ****)
J.Gruodzio g.21, LT-3000, Kaunas, Lithuania
phone (370 7) 221162), fax (370 7) 229393
e-mail santakos@kaunas.omnitel.net
http://www.omnitel.net/Saitas/hotel/santaka/santaka.htm
Department of Forest Genetics and Reforestation, Lithuanian Forest Research Institute
Liepu 1, LT-4312 Girionys, Kaunas district, Lithuania
phone (370 7) 547245, (370 7) 547221, fax (370 7) 547446,
http://www.litnet.lt/forest/forest.html
Girionys, Kaunas, 1999.12.20
No Doctoral Students or assistant professors from the faculty any more, no stimulation of doctoral thesis.
The faculty of forest sciences has decided not to assign funding to doktorandtjänster or forskarassistenttjänster. The money used for that purpose will be given direct to the departments. Considering the large (and in my opinion well justified) need of more permanent financed positions at the departments, my guess is that the departments seldom will use these money for the purpose they have been used to till now, unless they are forced to. At least for year 2000 the faculty or departmental funding will not be used to make new such positions, this strengthens my guess that it will seldom happen again. It is said that the reward for doctors produced (200kkr/doctor) will be removed. Instead some way of contracts will be constructed, where the departments get paid for promising certain things. I speculate about possible consequences below:
For Forest Genetics - Umeå
We had two positions of the type listed year 1999. Xiao-Ru Wang was forskarassistent and Erik W Andersson doctorand. These positions can be tracked backwards, forest genetics always had the equivalent of those positions during the previous decades. Year 2000 forest genetics in Umeå will have no-one. If the new system had not been launched we would probably have got both a doctorand and a forskarassistent. Thus the new system means that forest genetics at Umeå looses two positions and the system change is very unfair in the short perspective. It is less unfair in a longer time perspective. The harm to us is to be seen as collateral damage.
For doctorand production
The stimulation to "produce" doctors will probably be reduced. The economical incitement vanishes. It is not a cost-effective way to produce scientific results to educate doctorands. Perhaps it was earlier, when many fresh doctors were not available as an alternative. Our department will probably encounter no difficulty to produce a contracted number of doctorands without using departmental funds for doctorand salaries. Thus I predict the number of doctors produced will start falling in some years.
For efficiency
That the faculty makes contracts with the departments means that the focus goes to promising to do things to get money instead of getting money for what has been done. I believe a system should consider more on where things are done well than there promises are done to do things provided funding is given. The new system focus on keeping minimum standards. I predict this will lead to a reduction in scientific efficiency. A scientific system should focus on its better parts, and I predict the new system will push the focus from that and towards the more mediocre part of the activity. I also suspect that more of the available money will be used to support doctorands longer time than needed, this will also reduce the output of doctorands.
How to index gender in gene pools?
For our formulas we often want to indicate gender. Gender is a very basic thing in life, the first word the child learns is Mom and the second Dad. Mother, Father, Female and Male are central concepts, which are deeply rooted in the culture and have been at the centre of talk as long as talk has existed. Still I find it difficult to index in formulas, so correct associations are made. In Lindgren and Mullin (1998) and the "seed orchard manager" EXCEL workbook we use the index m for mothers and index f for fathers. Many biologist and geneticists (including Falconer) use m for male and f for female. Thus m and f can be misunderstood and another index might be sought for, even if the problem is not that big (as long as the indici are explained when used). Other alternatives are dams and sires; seed parents and pollen parents; maternal parents and paternal parents.
Why do I prefer fathers and mothers? The terms male and female (or dams and sires) have been used mainly by people who deal with organisms which have separate genders, while most of our trees can function as both. The terms female and male; dams and sires refer to the diploid individuals, while mother, father or parents focus on the relationship between individuals and their progeny and not other aspects of its maleness or femaleness. The link between generations is the successful gametes. The gene pool of a population is the gene pool of the successful gametes from the fathers and mothers to the population. It makes perfect sense that an individual functions both as mother and father. The concepts mother and father make it crystal clear what aspect of "maleness" is important. Female and male are not equivalent to father and mother, but female parent and male parent may be equivalent. I do not think it is nice semantics to call a pine a female, but it seems often OK to call it a mother.
If Billy Gates worked for humanity instead of his profit, we would be able to use the Roman symbols for Mars and Venus (
G and E , also symbols for iron and copper), they can hardly be misunderstood. But because of shortcomings of our electronic tools, that would be inconvenient. What could easily be done with the technique used some millennia ago is now unpractical, the modern technique is less flexible.I do not like the sire and dam concept. It is not widely known concepts. It is closely associated to the noble human diploids; thus it works in an ironic meaning for pigs, but hardly for trees. The seed parent and pollen parent concept works well, but the concepts are equally applicable to pigs, so why constrain it to some tree species?
We could talk about maternal parents and paternal parents. Could be symbolised with M and P. P raises the attention on that it is not female and male. Or MP and PP, that has the disadvantage of being two letters, but that (or the roman symbolism I suggest above) may be the best option to avoid confusion. Lower case would mean more problem with separating it from p = probability, thus it may be better to use higher case letters, but that can be confused to P for Parent. Paternal and Maternal gametes seems also good and clearer than male and female gametes. It seems less chauvinistic to start from Latin than English when choosing terminology. This is an additional reason to see "paternal parent" as preferable to "male parent". Are NMP and NPP suitable symbols for number of maternal parents respective paternal parents?
Comments to this discussion invited!
Conference in Quantitative Genetics
The next Gordon Conference in Quantitative Genetics will be held February
18-23, 2001 in Ventura, California (on the California coast, about 60
miles north of Los Angeles).
As these following matters are of a mainly domestic nature I write them in Swedish.
Genvägar
Ett läromedel om "genvägar" har lagts på
det kan vara allmänbildande ge uppslag till undervisning, eller ge ledning till hur man kan tänka i aktuella problem, även om det till stor del är ganska enkelt. Jag kunde inte hitta skogsträdsförädling.
Adjö till de långsiktiga fältförsöken (?)
Det går ut för med de skogsgenetiska långliggande försöken. När vi flyttade till Umeå så försörjdes ca fem personer som höll på med långsiktiga fältförsök på institutionen direkt av statsanslaget. Våra långsiktiga fältförsök beskrivs på en web-site, där kan man också se hur mycket som kommit ut av dem (en hel del). Jag har tillsammans med Anders Persson försökt beskriva hur en del av dessa gamla försök skulle kunna användas (Provenances revisited.doc). Verksamheten har successivt minskat, och i ekonomiska termer har stödet redan reducerats till en tiondel av vad det var för 20 år sedan, men i morgondagens historieskrivning (det är kanske jag som skriver den) kommer man kanske att säga att våra långsiktiga fältförsök tilldelades dödstöten vid millenniumskiftet. Vår fältgenetiker Dag Rudin pensionerades 1999 och har inte längre någon anställning vid institutionen. Vår fälttekniker Erik Walfridsson efterträder Tyra Mäler på SkogForsk. Vår skogstekniker Stefan Löfmark blir i praktiken IT-tekniker på institutionen. Han kommer kanske även i fortsättningen uppbära 25% lön för långsiktiga fältförsök, men eftersom det knappast är någon som driver på så.... Jag tror nog det är ett irreversibelt paradigmskifte. Det är följden av en utveckling inom fakulteten som jag kraftigt, i starka ordalag och vid många tillfällen informerat att den var på gång (och kom ihåg att jag ursprungligen försökte styra det som så småningom blev Thuy åt det hållet). Men de sista åren har jag slutat intressera mig (eftersom jag insett det var meningslöst), och jag kommer nog att rösta emot att fakulteten bedriver långsiktiga fältförsök, eller att andra organ initierar eller stödjer anläggningen, eftersom samhället inte förmår leva upp till ansvaret att följa dem långsiktigt. Detta kan vara av intresse att veta, för de som nu planerar att anlägga långsiktiga försök. Istället röstar jag för att vi skall framställa grödor med omloppstider som gör det realistiskt möjligt att följa försök under hela omloppstiden (dvs 20 år eller mindre). Jag inbjuder nu till debatt, det är inte alldeles omöjligt någon kan påverka mig eller övertyga de andra som får detta att jag har fel. Möjligen kan försöksparkerna ta ansvar för en del försök som ligger hyggligt väl till. När det gäller de rena förädlingsförsöken, så ändrar urvalseffekterna så måttligt på skogen att de knappast behöver följas längre, och det finns så mycket som blir gammalt mer eller mindre av sig själv.