Association of cone and seed traits of Pinus yunnanensis var. tenuifolia with geo-meteorological factors
Abstract
Aims Pinus yunnanensis var.tenuifolia is an ecologically and economically important timber tree located at the junction of Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi, China.The natural distribution area represents a typical habitat of hot-dry valley.This paper aimed to describe the association between variation patterns of cone and seed traits (CST) and the geo-meteorological factors, explore its ecological adaptability, and provide a reference for the genetic resources conservation, evaluation and utilization.Methods We sampled eight wild populations of P. yunnanensis var.tenuifolia distributed along the Nanpan-Hongshui River basin.The CST among and within populations were analyzed via discriptive statistics and nested ANOVA.Correlations between CST and geo-meteorological were evaluated based on Pearson and canonical correlation coefficients.Principal component analysis and Mantel test were applied to reveal the geographic variation pattern.Important findings Abundant variations of eleven CST among and within populations were indicated by the extremely significant difference of nested ANOVA results (p < 0.001).The variation within population was the main source (the average coefficient of phenotypic differentiation V ST = 18.65%), and generally, the V ST of cone traits (24.22%-39.88%)were larger than those of seed and wing traits (4.14%-13.80%),indicating more environment selection pressure on the cone traits.Majority of CST was positively correlated (though part of ©植物生态学报 Chinese Journal of Plant Ecology