GENETIC VARIATION IN MORPHOLOGICAL AND ANATOMICAL NEEDLE CHARACTERISTICS IN PINUS BRUTIA TEN

In a Pinus brutia TEN. plantation, including 14 populations, from different regions of its natural range, 11 morphological and anatomical needle traits (needle length, sheath length, number of rows of stomata on the dorsal face, number of rows of stomata on the ventral face, total number of rows of stomata, needle width, needle thickness, number of resin ducts, number of stomata per cm of row length, number of hypodermal layers in the dorsal face, total number of stomata per 1 cm segment) were studied. The univariate and multivariate analyses showed that: 1) significative differences exist between populations for all considered traits, even if most of the variation is due to differences between and within trees; 2) the populations of the Mediterranean sector of Turkey tend to group, while the populations of Iran (Pinus eldarica MEDW.) and of Cyprus are quite different from the others; 3) number of rows of stomata, needle width and thickness show a clinal trend with respect to longitude; 4) our result show that it is possible to discrimate the populations of P. brutia considering less characters: total number of rows of stomata, total number of stomata, needle width and number of hypodermal layers.