Why Sequence Conifers?
Conifers represent an ancient and diverse branch in higher plant evolution. Some conifer species dominate modern-day ecosystems that are repositories for large amounts of terrestrial sequestered carbon, while others exist in populations numbering tens of individuals. Conifer forests are among the most productive in terms of annual lignocellulosic biomass generation, and coniferous trees are the preferred feedstock for much of the forest products industry, one of the most energy-intensive manufacturing sectors of the U.S. economy. Breeding programs to improve conifers have been in existence for more than 50 years, but progress has been slow because of the large size of the trees and their generally slow progress to sexual maturity. Climate change and exotic forest pests are threatening certain conifer populations, but a general dearth of genomic resources and tools limits our capacity to address many of these issues and problems. One of the challenges of conifer genomics is that conifer
