Phenotypic Variation and Diversity in Fruit, Leaf, Fatty Acid, and Their Relationships to Geoclimatic Factors in Seven Natural Populations of Malania oleifera Chun et S.K. Lee

Abstract

Malania oleifera Chun et S.K. Lee is an endangered woody oil tree that produces nervonic acid, which is closely related to brain development. The phenotypic variation and diversity in some representative traits in natural populations are poorly understood. To investigate phenotypic variation, diversity and their relationship with geoclimatic factors, we evaluated 21 traits of 97 sampled individuals from seven natural populations. Coefficient of variation for 21 traits widely ranged from 0.05 (shape index of fruit) to 0.62 (water content of dry kernel), with an average of 0.18. The Shannon–Wiener indices ranged from 1.91 (water content of dry kernel) to 2.06 (leaf length and leaf width), with an average of 1.94. The variation of 20 traits was significantly influenced by the population effect (p < 0.05). The 21 traits were reduced to six principal components, which collectively accounted for 86.64% of the total phenotypic variation. The seven population was mainly divided into two groups: Group I, which included four populations distributed throughout the southern region and having wider and shorter leaves, larger fruit transverse diameters, and higher content of fatty acid and nervonic acid in the kernel, and Group II included the left populations with relative opposite characteristics to those in Group I. Trees with shorter leaves tend to produce oblate shape and heavier dried kernel, yielding more fatty acid and nervonic acids, and population-level pairwise kernel morphological distance were positively correlated with fatty acid distance (Mantel r = 0.39, p < 0.05). Annual average humidity was strongly positively correlated with leaf index (length/width, r = 0.78) but had a negative correlation with the kernel dry weight (r = −0.84). The shape of the kernel gradually altered from oblate to globose as longitude and rainfall increased. The environment became colder as latitude increased, resulting in a steady decrease in fatty acid content. No significant isolation by climatic and geographical distance was found for morphological and fatty acid variability. These results can have an important implication for genetic improvement, diversity conservation and resource management of the species in the future.

Natural Bioactive Substances in Fruits of Aronia melanocarpa (Michx.) Elliott Exposed to Combined Light-Type, Chitosan Oligosaccharide, and Spent Mushroom Residue Treatments

“…Introduced NWFP resources were advocated to be cultured at the understory layer of forests that were screened or managed to equip the objective environment. Meteorological factors have a joint driving effect on bioactive products in forest plants [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ]. Forests are a natural nursery where NWFP resources can be managed to harvest natural products [ 11 , 12 ].…”

Assessing Forest Quality through Forest Growth Potential, an Index Based on Improved CatBoost Machine Learning

“…In this study, the distance correlation coefficient was used to measure the correlation between the variables and the stock volume, and independent variables more suitable for estimating the stock volume were screened out. The distance correlation coefficient not only reflects the linear relationship between variables but also expresses the nonlinear relationship between variables; additionally, it does not require any model assumptions or parameter conditions [27]. The 39 factors selected as the characteristics were as follows: land type, area, landform, elevation (m), slope (degree), slope aspect, slope position, soil name, soil texture, soil-layer thickness (cm), humus-layer thickness, site-quality grade, land-management type, forest-land protection grade, traffic area, forest land-quality grade, undergrowth vegetation type, undergrowth vegetation height (m), undergrowth vegetation total coverage (%), forest category, forest belt length (m), forest belt width (m), number of forest belt rows, age, average diameter at breast height (cm), average height (m), canopy density or coverage, density, number of trees (plants) per mu, number of trees (plants), afforestation seedling age, Band2, Band3, Band4, Band5, Band6, Band7, Band10, and Band11.…”