Studies On Atavisms Of Poplar With Red Leaves

Populus×euramericana ‘Zhonghong’ is the bud-mutating cultivar fromAigeiros Populus Linn ‘2025’. And Populus×euramericana ‘Quanhong’ is thebud-mutating cultivar from Populus×euramericana ‘Zhonghong’. In this paper, wetake poplar with red leaf which happened atavisms as the research object. Itsmanifestation and reversion rate, measure the change of leaf area, Chlorophyll，anthocyans and photosynthesis, conjecture the mechanism of atavisms were surveyed.The main results are as follows:1. Four manifestation, reversion rate and measurementsFrom the result of survey, there are four forms:(1) Young tree. When planted, it growgreen leaf not red leaf;(2) Branch. The whole branch will grow green at theindividual branch after several years;(3) Branches turned half the red half of green nthe growth process;(4) leaf. With the growth process, leaf turned green. The area ofturning green has different sizes, a small part, the half part and the whole part ofleaf.the rate of atavisms is different in different varieties and different planting forms.2. The effects of atavisms on morphological character. it shows differently inmorphological character of different individual. To ‘Quanhong’, the green part growfaster than the red part, leaf area became2.3times than normal,2.75times indiameter and4.57times in height. But to ‘Zhonghong’, it almost has no influence onthe leaf area, diameter and height.3. The effects of atavisms on physiologically. The individual will change withatavisms, especially in physiology. Pigment contents in leaf will change when ithappens. In ‘Quanhong’, no matter the leaf became half red and half green or fullgreen, anthocyanin contents and Chlorophyll contents were significantly lower thannormal, The color value reduced, and the net photosynthetic rate higher than normalleaves; In ‘Zhonghong’, no matter the leaf became half red and half green or full green, anthocyanin contents content was lower than normal, but the chlorophyiicontents increases, the color value reduced and the net photosynthetic rate higher thannormal leaves.4. Possible mechanism of atavisms. We use SSR marker to detect ‘Quanhong’ and‘Zhonghong’ which occurs atavisms, but didn’t obtain any polymorphic bands. So weinferred that the genetic and developmental information originally used in theproduction of atavisms has not been lost during evolution but lies quiescent within thegenome. With some external environment factors, the gene lies quiescent within thegenome became activated, and show the character of ancestors...