Article Monuments Unveiled: Genetic Characterization of Large Old Chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) Trees Using Comparative Nuclear and Chloroplast DNA Analysis Claudia Mattioni 1,*, Liliana Ranzino 1, Marcello Cherubini 1, Luca Leonardi 1, Tommaso La Mantia 2 , Simone Castellana 1, Fiorella Villani 1 and Marco Cosimo Simeone 3 1 Istituto di Ricerca sugli Ecosistemi Terrestri-Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, 05010 Porano, Italy;
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[email protected]; Tel.: +39-0763374940 Received: 28 September 2020; Accepted: 19 October 2020; Published: 21 October 2020 Abstract: Large old trees are extraordinary organisms. They not only represent a historical, landscape and environmental heritage of inestimable value, but they also witness a long history of environmental changes and human interventions, and constitute an as yet poorly known reserve of genetic variability which can be considered a great resource for management programs of forest species. This is the first genetic study on Italian, large, old chestnut trees (Castanea sativa Mill.). Ninety-nine trees were surveyed and analysed. For each tree, more than one sample from canopy and root suckers was collected to test for the genetic integrity of the individuals. All samples were genotyped using nine nuclear microsatellite markers (nSSRs) and 106 unique genetic profiles were identified.