The variability of Scots pine from Piekielna Góra as expressed by morphological and anatomical traits of needles

Abstract

Two-year old needles were collected from 30 standing Scots pine trees on Piekielna Góra. These needles were analysed in respect to 13 morphological and anatomical traits. The data so obtained was subjected to a whole range of multi-trait analytical methods in an attempt to determine the variability among the randomly chosen trees. Multivariate analysis of variance and canonical analysis were done as well as calculation of Mahalanobis distances between each pair of trees and their significance was tested by the Hotelling T2 statistics. Aminimum spanning tree was constructed on the basis of the shortest Mahalanobis distances, while a dendrogram (cluster analysis) was compiled on the basis of Euclidean distances. It was found that in spite of the fact that the studied population sample of pines did not form internal, significantly differentiated groups, the variability among particular trees was large and depended on the given trait. The number of resin canals best differentiated the studied trees, while the Marcet coefficient did not significantly differentia­te any pair of trees.