Effects of Ammonium or Nitrate Nutrition on Wood Formation of Populus sp. and Arabidopsis thaliana

Nitrogen is an essential nutrient taken up by plants from the soil mainly as nitrate and ammonium. Poplars are fast-growing woody species that use both nitrogen forms for their nutrition. However, little is known how different forms of nitrogen nutrition influence biomass production and wood formation in poplar. The goal of this study was to characterize growth, biomass production, anatomical effects and the regulation of genes involved in wood formation of poplars in response to nitrate or ammonium feeding. A further goal was to characterize a selected candidate gene PtGATA12 functionally using poplar and Arabidopsis as model plants.