Genetic Diversity of Sea Oat Lines Collected from a Wide Geographic Range.

Sea oats (Uniola paniculata L.), a perennial, cross-pollinated dune plant, is used to build and stabilize dunes in Louisiana because it spreads rapidly by rhizomes.  Existing stands of sea oats in Louisiana have been introduced because native stands no longer exist.  The disappearance of native stands of sea oats may have been caused by low dune profiles, which plague Louisiana’s coast, or the low number of seeds that are produced along Louisiana’s Gulf Coast.  The genetic diversity of sea oats collected in Louisiana has been found to be low and could be responsible for low seed production.  To increase the genetic diversity of sea oats that are used in Louisiana’s restoration projects an extensive collection of sea oats was made throughout the United States.  About 380 lines were collected from 8 southeastern Atlantic and Gulf Coast states of the United States (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia).  Approximately 60 of the 380 lines performed well vegetatively in Louisiana.  The objective of this study was to determine the genetic relatedness of these high performing lines.