The Jinyun South China Podophylla (gymnophaera Metteniana Tagawa) Populations In Morphological Differentiation And Community Characteristics

The study on conservation of biodiversity is a world-wide concerned topic. One of the key research field of biodiversity is on the conservation biology of the rare and endangering species. G. metteniana is the national protected plant II. The distribution of G. metteniana is small and quantity is decreasing for destroying by man. It is a urgent problem to study the population and synecology of G. Metteniana, which will help to study its endangering mechanism. In present paper, following the basic principles of population differentiation, synecology, conservation biology and with the help of statistical analysis, we study the morphological differentiation relation with its environment in eight populations of G. Meueniana in different environment, spatial pattern, community diversity, age distribution of G. meaeniana , the species diversity, interspecific association, communities similarity of six communities of G. meaeniana. 1. G. metteniana depends on water rigidly. With the distance added to the water, the distribution decreases. We seldom see the species out of the range of thirty meter from the water. 2. Study show that there are great differences between the morphological characters of G. metteniana injinyun moutain and description in FLORA SICHUANICA. 3. Variance analysis shows that most of the studied morphological characters vary very significantly between the populations. It means that G. metteniana can adapt the environment in some extent. 4. The differentiation of sporangiosorus diameter between 8 populations is not significant. It means that reproductive organs change less than vegetative organs among the different environment. 5. Cluster analysis shows that population G and population H have some morphologicaldifferentiation with the other populations. In general, there is not significant morphological differentiation between 8 populations. 6. Correlation analysis between the morphological characters shows that all the characters have significant correlation with some other characters except the sporangiosorus diameter. 7. There is significant negative correlation between petiole width and distance to the water. 8. Some characters such as foliage length, the fifth pinna length, the fifth pinna width, foliage numbers have significant correlation with attitude. The distance between the first pinna and the second pinnule of the first pinna, the ratio between scale length and scale width has significant positive correlation alitutide. 9. The first three principle component contribution of 40 morphological characters in the PCA is 49.06%. Contributions of the first ten principles are 75.29%. That there are great difference between the first one principle component contribution and others shows that the first one principle component take a important role in all of them. There is little difference between the last 37 principle components contribution. 10. There are 9 characters whose total loadings on the first three PC抯 of the G. metteniana are bigger than 0.8, such as petiole length, lamina length, lamina width, the fifth pinna length, the fifth pinna width, the first pinna length, the distance between the first pinnule and the second pinnule of the first pinna. 11. N. afjinis, Ppubescens and Mglyptostroboides are the constructive species in the tree layer. G. meaeniana is the dominant species in the herb layer. 12. Before G.metteniana mature, it needs enough water...