Open Access

ARTICLE

Morphometric variation in two natural populations of Pinus hartwegii Lindl. at Veracruz State

by Iglesias LG¹, LY Solís-Ramos², H Viveros-Viveros³

1 Instituto de Biotecnología y Ecología Aplicada (INBIOTECA), Universidad Veracruzana, V. de las Culturas Veracruzanas No. 101, Campus para la Cultura, las Artes y el Deporte, Colonia Emiliano Zapata, C.P. 91090 Xalapa, Veracruz, México. Tel.: (228) 8 42 27 73.
2 Biotecnología y Transformación Genética de Plantas, Escuela de Biología, Universidad de Costa Rica. P.O. Box 11501-2060, San Pedro, Costa Rica. Tel.: (506) 25115091 y Fax. (506) 25114216.
3 Instituto de Investigaciones Forestales (INIFOR), Universidad Veracruzana, Parque Ecológico “El Haya”, Col. Benito Juárez, C.P. 91070, A.P. 551, Tel. / Fax (228) 8 42 17 00 Ext. 13964, Xalapa, Ver., México, e-mail: heviveros@hotmail.com

* Corresponding Author:Address Correspondence to: Lourdes G. Iglesias, e-mail:

Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany 2012, 81(all), 239-246. https://doi.org/10.32604/phyton.2012.81.239

Abstract

The morphometric variation of cones, seeds and needles was evaluated in two natural populations of Pinus hartwegii at Veracruz state to estimate the percentage of phenotypic variation due to differences among populations and trees within populations. In addition, multivariate principal components, cluster and discriminate analysis was conducted to characterize the populations. Most of the traits measured on cones, seeds and needles showed significant variation both among populations and among trees within populations. Measurements of cone and seed traits used as indicators of the genetic and reproductive status of two natural populations of P. hartwegii revealed that much of the variation was mainly detected among trees within populations. Cone characters showed that the variance distributed both among and within populations. Leaf traits showed a greater percentage of variation among than within tree populations, indicating that these traits are strongly influenced by the environment. Results from the principal component and cluster analysis did not allow to differentiate clearly both populations. The most important discriminatory variable between populations was the cone length; an efficiency of 70% in the classification of the trees from both populations was obtained on this basis. The overall results agree that there is little differentiation in morphological characters among the examined populations, and that most of the variation was detected within populations.

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