QUANTITATIVE STUDY OF CLINAL VARIATION IN Juniperus virginiana USING TERPENOID DATA

Abstract

Nine populations of Juniperus virginiana were sampled at approximately 150-mile intervals along a 1500-mile transect from northeastern Texas to Washington, D.C. Individual plants were examined for terpenoids by gas liquid chromatography and the resulting data analyzed by numerical classification methods using characters weighted according to their estimated variance in the natural populations.The results of the analysis show that these populations of J. virginiana cluster clinally from northeast to southwest, the more homogeneous populations occurring in the Appalachian region of North America; the more divergent populations found in progressively more distant regions, as measured along the transect from the northeast toward the southwest. No biochemical evidence could be found to support the hypothesis that hybridization with J. ashei might be causing this variability, as had been widely supposed previously.