Morphological Variance among Populations of Three Tropical Orchids with Restricted Gene Flow(Population Biology)

概要

論文の詳細を見る
Variance in floral morphology among populations was investigated in three species of Lepanthes (Orchidaceae) from Puerto Rico. Populations that share a common gene pool and similar environment are expected to share similar phenotypes, so that populations that are physically close should be more similar to each other than populations that are separated by large distances as gene flow is usually leptokurtic. Univariate and multivariate analyses of floral characteristics were compared using MANOVA and Linear Discriminant Function Analysis. Most groups of individuals (populations) differed significantly when analyzed by univariate or multivariate methods. Floral characteristics of populations separated by only few meters were often significantly different. No correlation between amount of morphological difference (square Mahalanobis distances) and inferred gene flow (physical distances) was present in any of three species studied. Other research has shown that genetic population substructuring is high and effective population size is extremely small in all three species of orchids. It is thus argued that the large amount of morphological differences among populations are likely a result of genetic drift or phenotypic plasticity, and are unlikely to be the result of natural selection at the micro habitat level.
種生物学会の論文