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Morphological and ecophysiological variation of the hybrid oak Quercus subpyrenaica (Q. faginea × Q. pubescens)

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Abstract

Natural hybridization is common among oaks. We studied the variability of morphological and ecophysiological variables in the hybrid Quercus subpyrenaica and its assumed parental species Q. faginea and Q. pubescens, which co-occur in NE Spain. To assess the fitness of these taxa we studied several ecophysiological variables (hydraulic conductivity, K h; hydraulic specific conductivity, K s; leaf specific conductivity, LSC; water potential corresponding to a 50% loss of conductivity, PLC50; efficiency of light absorption, E a). We performed a correspondence analysis (CA) to ordinate seedlings, grown under homogeneous environmental conditions, according to their plant and leaf morphology. The CA axis 1 synthesized intra-taxon variability, while the CA axis 2 summarized inter-taxa variability. Q. subpyrenaica showed a wide spectrum of forms, but they were overall closer to those of Q. faginea. We defined three phenotypes within the hybrid based on morphology, which were: (i) the robur group (Qs-r; auriculate leaf base, rounded lobe apex); (ii) Q. pubescens (Qs-p; rounded leaf base, acute lobe apex); and (iii) Q. faginea (Qs-f; acute leaf base, acute-spiny lobe apex). The mean values of K s and PLC50 arranged the hybrid groups in the same order as the ordination based on leaf morphology. The Qs-r group showed the highest values of K s and PLC50, while the Qs-f group showed the lowest. Both morphologically and ecophysiologically, the hybrids showed a wide range of values, which spanned and even exceeded the variation of parental taxa.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by 1FD97-0911-C03-01 project (Subpr. 1) and AECI grant to H.H. We sincerely thank F. Valladares (CCMA, CSIC) and J. Esteso (CITA) for their advices on the use of Y-Plant software. We also thank M.A. Pascual and J. Voltas for their assistance, and P.G. Goicoechea for improving an earlier version of the manuscript. JJC acknowledges the financial support of a INIA-DGA contract.

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  1. Unidad de Recursos Forestales, Centro de Investigación y Tecnología Agroalimentaria, Gobierno de Aragón, Apdo. 727, 50080, Zaragoza, Spain

    Hocine Himrane, Jesús Julio Camarero & Eustaquio Gil-Pelegrín

  2. Institut National de la Recherche Forestière, B.P. 37, Cheraga, Algiers, Algeria

    Hocine Himrane

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  1. Hocine Himrane
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Correspondence to Eustaquio Gil-Pelegrín.

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Himrane, H., Camarero, J.J. & Gil-Pelegrín, E. Morphological and ecophysiological variation of the hybrid oak Quercus subpyrenaica (Q. faginea × Q. pubescens). Trees 18, 566–575 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-004-0340-0

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