Abstract
Leaves are plant structures that express important traits of the environment where they live. Leaf description has allowed identification of plant species as well as investigation of abiotic factors effects on their development, such as gases, light, temperature, and herbivory. This study described populations of Dalbergia ecastaphyllum through leaf geometric morphometrics in Brazil. We evaluated 200 leaves from four populations. The principal component analysis (PCA) showed that the first four principal components were responsible for 97.81% of variation. The non-parametric multivariate analysis of variance (NPMANOVA) indicated significant difference between samples (p = 0.0001). The Mentel test showed no correlation between geographical distances and shape. The canonical variate analysis (CVA) indicated that the first two variables were responsible for 96.77 % of total variation, while the cross-validation test showed an average of 83.33%. D. ecastaphyllum leaves are elliptical and ovate.
Highlights
Dalbergia ecastaphyllum (Fabaceae) is native to Brazil; there are records of this species along the eastern American and western African coasts (CARVALHO, 1997; OLIVEIRA; CORTEZ, 2015)
In Brazil, D. ecastaphyllum is found from the Amazon to the Atlantic Rainforest (LIMA, 2017)
Known as “rabo-de-bugio” in Brazil, D. ecastaphyllum is considered a typical species of mangrove or flooded areas (CARVALHO, 1997; REYS; CANTILLO, 2004) and can be found in sandy soils helping in sand dune stabilization (GÜTTLER, 2007)
Summary
Dalbergia ecastaphyllum (Fabaceae) is native to Brazil; there are records of this species along the eastern American and western African coasts (CARVALHO, 1997; OLIVEIRA; CORTEZ, 2015). Geometric morphometrics has been widely used to evaluate plant species in several aspects namely evolution (KLINGENBERG et al 2012), taxonomy (CONESA et al, 2012), and genetic diversity (SAVRIAMA et al, 2012; STRELIN et al, 2013) This technique has been used to evaluate leaf changes through the analysis of relative landmark positions and sets of points in approximating (curves) surfaces and quantifying. Geometric morphometrics allows the direct study of object shapes by viewing thin plate-splines enabling the description of differences between shapes and estimation of the variance-covariance matrix in particular traits (BOOKSTEIN, 1991; DRYDEN; MARDIA, 2016). This technique greatly contributes to plant studies. This study described for the first time populations of Dalbergia ecastaphyllum through leaf geometric morphometrics, contributing to a better understanding of the species ecological aspects
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