Bulletin of Botanical Research ›› 2025, Vol. 45 ›› Issue (2): 299-314.doi: 10.7525/j.issn.1673-5102.2025.02.015

• Original Paper • Previous Articles    

Phenotypic Diversity Analysis of Natural Herbaceous Peony Populations in Great Khingan Mountains

Jiaying TANG1,2, Jinkun ZHANG2, Jiwen HU2, Fude WANG3, Peiyao XIN1, Wenjun MA2()   

  1. 1.School of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture Sciences,Key Laboratory of National Forestry and Grassland Administration on Biodiversity Conservation in Southwest China,Southwest Forestry University,Kunming 650224
    2.Key Laboratory of Forest Cultivation of National Forestry and Grassland Administration,Research Institute of Forestry,Chinese Academy of Forestry,Beijing 100091
    3.Forestry Research Institute of Heilongjiang Province,Harbin 150081
  • Received:2024-12-11 Online:2025-03-20 Published:2025-04-07
  • Contact: Wenjun MA E-mail:mwjlx@caf.ac.cn

Abstract:

Paeonia lactiflora is a perennial herbaceous plant of Paeonia genus in the Paeoniaceae family, widely distributed in northeast, north and northwest China, but its germplasm resources sharply decreased due to human destruction and environmental changes. To explore the rule of phenotypic variation and the phenotypic diversity, 256 individual plants from 12 natural populations of P. lactiflora in Great Khingan Mountains were used as materials, and the data on 23 phenotypic characteristics were collected, and the methods of Nested analysis of variance, Pearson correlation analysis, principal components analysis and cluster analysis were used, respectively. The results showed that the coefficient of variation and the mean Shannon-Wiener index of 15 quantitative traits such as plant height and crown width were 25.88%(12.34%-92.78%) and 1.843, respectively. The mean Shannon-Wiener index of eight quality traits such as leaflet type, the degree of leaflet retraction and flower color was 1.146. There were significant differences in 11 phenotypic traits among and within populations (P<0.01), and the average phenotypic differentiation coefficient between populations was 25.72%. The correlations indicated that most of the 15 quantitative traits were significantly or extremely significantly correlated with each other. The flower diameter was negatively correlated with latitude, humidity and precipitation, but positively correlated with altitude, annual average sunshine hours and temperature; the number of petals was positively correlated with latitude, but negatively correlated with the average annual sunshine hours. The length of compound leaves was positively correlated with the average annual precipitation. The above results indicated that temperature and geographical factors had more impact on flower phenotypic traits than on stem and leaf phenotypic traits of P. lactiflora. Four principal components were extracted by principal component analysis and accumulative contribution rate was 88.678%. The 12 natural populations were divided into three categories by cluster analysis, the first category was P3 population and characterized by multi heads and large flowers type with highly ornamental value; the second category, including two populations P7 and P9, had bigger stem and leaf traits such as plant height, stem diameter, number of scape, compound leaves, and apical leaflets, compared to other populations, indicating the population had vigorous growth. The nine populations in the third category were characterized by compound leaves, short and narrow apical leaflets, wide flower diameter, and short flower stalks. The phenotypic diversity and variation levels of P. lactiflora in Great Khingan Mountains were high, and intra-populations variation was the main sources. In conclusion, this study analyzed the phenotypic diversity of P. lactiflora in Great Khingan Mountains and explored its phenotypic variation patterns, which provided a basis for better protection and utilization of P. lactiflora resources.

Key words: Paeonia lactiflora, phenotypic variation, diversity analysis, environmental factors

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