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A QUANTITATIVE STUDY OF VARIATION IN THE CHENOPODIUM ATROVIRENS‐DESICCATUM‐PRATERICOLA COMPLEX
Author(s) -
Reynolds James F.,
Crawford Daniel J.
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
american journal of botany
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.218
H-Index - 151
eISSN - 1537-2197
pISSN - 0002-9122
DOI - 10.1002/j.1537-2197.1980.tb07770.x
Subject(s) - biology , principal component analysis , chemotaxonomy , taxon , multivariate analysis , correspondence analysis , taxonomic rank , chenopodium , taxonomy (biology) , botany , statistics , mathematics , weed
Multivariate analyses were applied to 96 populations (OTUs) of plants, traditionally referred to Chenopodium atrovirens, C. desiccatum , and C. pratericola , in an attempt to evaluate the numerous and often contradictory taxonomic treatments of plants in this complex. The study consisted of two major parts. The first involved the use of cluster and principal components analyses using 14 morphological characters on the entire set of 96 OTUs to search for phenetically distinct groupings; these analyses were conducted without knowledge of traditional taxonomic designations of individual OTUs. Three reasonably well‐defined groups emerged from these preliminary analyses. When traditional taxonomic designations were applied to member OTUs of each group, one group was composed primarily of C. atrovirens , another of C. pratericola and the third of C. desiccatum . The second part of the study utilized canonical analysis to: 1) confirm the integrity of the phenetic groups, 2) to classify OTUs difficult to identify to species using traditional methods, and 3) to provide an evaluation of characters important in the separation of these groups. This analysis confirmed the integrity of the groups and provided a classification to species of nearly all of the otherwise difficult OTUs. In addition, canonical analysis demonstrated that a combination of characters was important in the separation of the phenetic groups.