Journal of Chemical Ecology, Vol. 28, No. 1, January 2002 (  C 2002) COMPARING THE VARIATION OF NEEDLE AND WOOD TERPENOIDS IN SCOTS PINE PROVENANCES A.-M. MANNINEN, 1, * S. TARHANEN, 1 M. VUORINEN, 2 and P. KAINULAINEN 1,3 1 Department of Ecology and Environmental Science University of Kuopio P.O. Box 1627, FIN-70211 Kuopio, Finland 2 The Finnish Forest Research Institute Suonenjoki Research Station FIN-77600 Suonenjoki, Finland 3 MTT Agrifood Research Finland Plant Production Research, Plant Protection FIN-31600 Jokioinen, Finland (Received March 6, 2001; accepted September 9, 2001) Abstract—We determined variation in both the concentration and composition of terpenoids in needles and wood within nine Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) provenances. Seedlings of different provenances representing a 1200-km N–S transect from Estonia to northern Finland were cultivated in Suonenjoki nursery field, central Finland, for seven years. Growth of seedlings and the number of ver- tical resin ducts in wood were also determined. α-Pinene and 3-carene were the major monoterpenes both in the needles and wood. The total monoterpene con- centration was about five times higher in the needles than in the wood. A strong positive correlation was found between proportional quantities of several ter- penes of the needles and wood, particularly for 3-carene, sabinene, and terpino- lene. The needles contained both labdane-type and tricyclic resin acids, whereas the wood contained only tricyclic ones. The wood had a four times higher tri- cyclic resin acid concentration than the needles. The highest total monoterpene concentration in the needles and in the wood occurred in the most northern Muo- nio provenance and in the most southern Saaremaa provenance plants, respec- tively. The amount of high 3-carene genotype trees decreased among the northern provenances. The wood of the most northern Muonio provenance showed the lowest total resin acid concentration, but provenance did not affect total tricyclic resin acids in the needles. Korpilahti provenance trees from central Finland had the best growth in height. In addition, Korpilahti and Ruokolahti provenance trees showed largest radial growth of stem and smallest number of vertical resin ducts. *To whom correspondence should be addressed. 211 0098-0331/02/0100-0211/0 C  2002 Plenum Publishing Corporation