Dominating and large induced trees in regular graphs

Recently Chen et al. [Tree domination in graphs, Ars Combin. 73 (2004) 193–203] asked for characterizations of the class of graphs and the class of regular graphs that have an induced dominating tree, i.e. for which there exists a dominating set that induces a tree.We give a somewhat negative answer to their question by proving that the corresponding decision problems are NP-complete. Furthermore, we prove essentially best-possible lower bounds on the maximum order of induced trees in connected cacti of maximum degree 3 and connected cubic graphs.Finally, we give a forbidden induced subgraph condition for the existence of induced dominating trees.