The Reproductive Biology of Danthonia Spicata.

Danthonia spicata is a native cool-season grass often found in managed turf environments throughout the east coast of the United States.  Commonly known as poverty oatgrass D. spicata is often associated with low pH high iron soils and has shown excellent tolerance of shade, drought, and low soil fertility.  Currently very little is known about the level of genetic diversity or the primary reproductive strategy (outcrossing, self-fertilization or apomixis) in D. spicata.  High throughput 454 sequencing of random sheared D. spicata genomic DNA was used to develop a Simple Sequence Repeat resource of approximately 450 SSR containing fragments.  Primers were designed to 96 tri and tetranucleotide repeat containing fragments and screened on five parents and chasmogamous  progeny population developed from a single turf type D. spicata plants.  Approximately 60 of the 96 primer pairs tested produced fragments in the expected size range.  Ten primer pairs that produced uniform amplification were chosen for analysis of genetic diversity of D. spicata populations from the Washington D.C. area.  Results indicate suggest that apomixis is the most likely reproductive strategy in D. spicata.