Variations in the composition of essential oils of selected Artemisia species as a function of soil type

Abstract

Five Artemisia species (seven A. alba Turra samples and twelve samples of each four remaining species: A. absinthium L., A. annua L., A. vulgaris L. and A. scoparia Waldst. & Kit.) from Serbia were studied from the aspect of essential oil chemical composition, and potential correlations between essential oil composition with soil type determined using World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB). A great variety in essential oil composition was observed for A. alba, A. absinthium and A. vulgaris samples, while in the case of A. annua, as well as A. scoparia, the composition of the examined essential oils was more uniform. Principal component analysis (PCA) and agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC) showed that there is no significant effect of soil type on the Artemisia essential oil composition while Mantel test showed that there is a correlation between samples within A. vulgaris, as well as A. scoparia and the geographical distances of the localities from which these samples were collected.