JENSEN1, RICHARD*, MARYANN SCHWOYER1, GREGORY ANDERSON2, DANIEL CRAWFORD3, TOD STUESSY4, AND MARCELO BAEZA5. 1Department of Biology, Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, IN; 2Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT; 3Department of Plant Biology, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH; 4Institut für Botanik, Universität Wien, Austria; 5Departmento de Botánica, Universidad de Concepción, Chile. - Relationships among populations of Myrceugenia fernandeziana (Myrtaceae) on Masatierra Island.
Myrceugenia fernandeziana is an anemophilous tree endemic to
Masatierra Island in the Juan Fernandez Archipelago. Mature leaves
were sampled from trees in each of 25 populations. Morphological
analyses were conducted using randomly selected samples of 5 leaves
per tree. Univariate analysis of leaf characters reveals both high
levels of within population variation and significant among-population
differences. Multivariate analysis of elliptic Fourier coefficients
from leaf outlines reveals well-defined clusters of populations.
Mantel tests reveal weak relationship between morphological and
geographic distances. For a subset of populations, there is weak
evidence of relationship between morphological and genetic distances,
but there is a significant relationship between genetic and geographic
distances. Significant spatial autocorrelation is demonstrated for
morphological characters.
Key words: island endemic, Morphometrics, Myrtaceae, populations