A peer-reviewed version of this preprint was published in PeerJ on 12 June 2017. View the peer-reviewed version (peerj.com/articles/3452), which is the preferred citable publication unless you specifically need to cite this preprint. Dominguez-Guerrero IK, del Rocío Mariscal-Lucero S, Hernández-Díaz JC, Heinze B, Prieto-Ruiz JÁ, Wehenkel C. 2017. Discrimination of Picea chihuahuana Martinez populations on the basis of climatic, edaphic, dendrometric, genetic and population traits. PeerJ 5:e3452 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3452 Discrimination of Picea chihuahuana Martinez populations on the basis of numerous dendrometric, climatic and edaphic traits and genetic diversity Iliana Karina Dominguez-Guerrero 1 , Samantha Mariscal-Lucero 2 , José Ciro Hernández-Díaz 2 , Berthold Heinze 3 , José Ángel Prieto-Ruiz 4 , Christian Wehenkel Corresp. 2 1 Universidad Juárez del Estado de Durango, Durango, Mexico 2 Forestry and Wood Industry Institute, Universidad Juárez del Estado de Durango, Durango, Mexico 3 Federal Research Centre for Forests, Natural Hazards and Landscape (BFW), Vienna, Austria 4 Faculty of Forestry Sciences, Universidad Juárez del Estado de Durango, Durango, Mexico Corresponding Author: Christian Wehenkel Email address:
[email protected] Background. Picea chihuahuana, which is endemic to Mexico, is currently listed as “Endangered” on the Red List. Chihuahua spruce is only found in the Sierra Madre Occidental (SMO), Mexico. About 42,600 individuals are distributed in forty populations. The populations are fragmented and can be classified into three distinct clusters in the SMO of the two States (south, center and north), each group separated by a distance of about 300 km. The total area covered P.