Genetic differentiation of populations was among the more prevalent topics in the symposium. He also showed that discrepancy in within and between matrices of correlation of allelic frequencies is a major cause of multilocus population differentiation. While this method should be useful in evaluating the extent of population fragmentation and mixing caused by forest practices, it requires more informative markers like microsatellites. He showed that, under increasing complexity of stress conditions, heterozygosities tend to be larger and genetic diversity increases in tolerant samples, and that complex and long lasting environmental stress seems to result in complex genetic response at the multi-locus level and genetically diverse individuals obviously show a viability advantage under complex environmental stress. He also stressed that ecological genetics should continue to play a major role in understanding the adaptation and dynamics of forest populations.
Conservation policy is another topic that received great attention and extensive discussion.
Population size, number and distribution of subpopulations within individual genetic resource management units are used as the primary indicators of vulnerability to genetic erosion. The principles associated with effective population size and metapopulation dynamics were used to develop guidelines for managing genetic drift and inbreeding. In the conceptual framework, there is still a lack of active breeding approaches for incorporating long-term forest genetic conservation, such as Namkoong's multiple population breeding strategy. Despite these discussions, it remains less than clear what the role of research in genetics and ecology are in conservation policy making. These talks demonstrated that common garden tests still play an important role in providing information on adaptation and genotype-environment interactions.