Relationships between morphological variance, gene diversity and flavonoid patterns in the land race populations of Ethiopian barley

B ekele , E. 1984. Relationships between morphological variance. gene diversity and flavonoid patterns in the land race populations of Ethiopian barley. — Hereditas 100: 271–294. Lund, Sweden. ISSN 0018–0661. Received February 7, 1984 An argument is forwarded that in addition to multiple genetic factors, single gene mutation with major effect could be very important in the evolution of natural populations and domesticates. The effect of null alleles and correlations between traits determined by major and minor genes are suggested to show different strategies of adaptation among different kinds of organisms. Sturtevant's hybrid dysgenesis could be the genetic reasons for Vavilov's emancipation of recessives. The three linked esterase loci are assumed to be the results of some form of gene duplication. The genetic backgrounds of the gene are reasons for unspecific polytype correlations between all states of genes and ecological variables. The rank correlation of the percentage of the contribution to the total variation by the differences between individuals in each population between enzymatic and morphological variation was not significant except for row number and Est‐A locus. Diversity indices of morphological variables and enzymes are differently correlated in different regions. Enzyme variation and quantitative characters are positively correlated in some regions and negatively in others. But negative correlations are mainly concentrated into three regions. This, together with the result of kurtosis and skewness of quantitative characters are taken to be the results of multidirectional selection schemes. Correlations of quantitative characters showed an overall higher occurrence of negative correlations between plant height and number of sterile florets. Regional cluster differences based on genetic distance measures of enzymatic data and morphological data are perhaps due to differences in the fitness potential that can be related to particular allelic combinations at one level and more directly, to phenotypic properties at another. Enzyme variations and frequencies of flavonoid patterns are negatively correlated. The eleven frequent alleles that were correlated with means of six quantitative characters showed both negative and positive correlations with uneven distribution over regions. Flavonoid C pattern is negatively correlated with a number of sterile florets and positively correlated with a number of seeds.