POPULATION STRUCTURE OF MORPHOLOGICAL TRAITS IN CLARKIA DUDLEYANA. II. CONSTANCY OF WITHIN-POPULATION GENETIC VARIANCE.

Abstract

Recent quantitative genetic studies have attempted to infer long-term selection responsible for differences in observed phenotypes. These analyses are greatly simplified by the assumption that the within-population genetic variance remains constant through time and over space, or for the multivariate case, that the matrix of additive genetic variances and covariances (G matrix) is constant. We examined differences in G matrices and the association of these differences with differences in multivariate means (Mahalanobis D2 ) among 11 populations of the California endemic annual plant, Clarkia dudleyana. Based on nine continuous morphological traits, the relationship between Mahalanobis D2 and a distance measure summarizing differences in G matrices reflected no concomitant change in (co)variances with changes in means. Based on both broad- and narrow-sense analyses, we found little evidence that G matrices differed between populations. These results suggest that both the additive and nonadditive (co)variances for traits have remained relatively constant despite changes in means.