Differentiation of populations of Agrostis tenuis Sibth. and Dactylis glomerata L. in the flood meadow habitats of the Luga river

Abstract

The purpose of our study was to examine the structure of the variation in the population of two grass species and the nature of differentiation of their populations in various habitats. We used data of the 13 morphological traits in 16 populations of Dactylis glomerata L.and 9 populations Agrostis tenuis Sibth.in 4 types of habitats of flood meadows performed in the North-West region of Russia. The statistical data processing was performed in the package STATISTICA 5.0 for Windows (Statsoft Inc., USA). Results were showed, that the size of individuals is a direct response to the variation of richness of environmental conditions. The shape components, which reflect genetic diffwerentiation of populations due to genetic drift and natural selection, are less variable.