Morphological Differentiation and Neighborhood Size in Liatris cylindracea

Abstract

Pollinator flight and seed dispersal distributions are leptokurtic in the perennial, prairie herb Liatris cylindracea Michx. (Compositae). From these dispersal data neighborhood size and area were determined to be 165 plants and 33 m2, respectively. An analysis of morphological variation along three transects of an edaphic gradient indicates that significant local differentiation for several characters occurs at the study site. The pattern of local differentiation is unrelated to edaphic factors.