Geometry morphometrics of plant structures as a phenotypic tool to differentiate Polylepis incana Kunth. and Polylepis racemosa Ruiz & Pav. reforested jointly in Ecuador

Figures & data

Figure 1. Map of Ecuador showing the sampling samples of P. incana and P. racemosa in this study. (A) Illinizas Ecological Reserve, (B) Mojanda Lagoon and (C) Cayambe-Coca National Park. Obtained from ArcGIS (Geographic Information System) Software by Esri (Environmental Systems Research Institute) for Windows, version 10.5 × 64 Bits. (Release 10. Redlands, California)

Table 1. Taxonomic review with collections from the herbarium of the department of biological sciences of the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador in Quito (Herbarium QCA)

Population	Species	Collection year	Collected by	Herbal field number
IllinizasEcological Reserve	Polylepis incana	1985	S. Lægaard	54,553
	Polylepisracemosa	–	–	–
Mojanda Lagoons	Polylepis incana	1984	S. Lægaard	53,336
	Polylepis racemosa	2011	A.J. Pérez, D. Cevallos & Estudiantes Botánica I	5115
Cayambe Coca National Park	Polylepis incana	1984	Alina Freire Fierro	23
	Polylepis racemosa	–	–	–

Table 2. Configuration of landmarks in each plant structure of P. incana and P. racemosa in this study, with a description of the reference points on the right: a) Leaves, b) Stomata, c) Flowers, d) Pollen

a) Leaves	Landmarks	Description
	1	Petiole base
	2,3	Petiolule base
	4,5,6	Foliar base
	10,12	Basal tooth of central leaflet
	7,9,13,15	Distal leaflet tooth
	8,11,14	Leaf-blade apex
b) Stomata
	1,5	Occlusive cell length
	2,4,6,8	Points on the margin of the occlusive cells
	3,7	Stoma width
	9,10	Stomatal pore width
c) Flowers
	1,2,3	Calyx
	4,6,7,9,10,12	Sepal width
	5,8,11	Apex of sepal
d) Pollen
	1,2,4,5,7,8	Corpuscle width
	3,6,9	Midpoint between corpuscles

Figure 2. Result of the principal component analysis (PCA) for P. incana and P. racemosa. The dispersion of points along the horizontal axis (x) PC1 and the vertical axis (y) PC2 is represented for (A) compound leaves and (B,C) flowers. In some cases, more than one graph per organ is presented because different behaviours per population were identified, in flowers this apply for population Illinizas Ecological Reserve (B) instead population of Mojanda lagoon and Cayambe-Coca National Park are clustered (C). Wire graphs showing the main directions of variation from the consensus are also presented

Figure 3. Results of the discriminant analysis of the different plant structures analyzed as potential morphological characters for the distinction between P. incana species (red bars) and P. racemosa (blue bars): (A) compound leaves and (B) flowers

Table 3. P values for the permutation test (1000 rounds) based on the Mahalanobis and Procrustes distance of compound leaves (distance values for populations A, B, and C, respectively) between species (groups)

A: Mahalanobis distance				B: Procrustes distance
Groups	P. incana	P. incana*	P. racemosa	Groups	P. incana	P. incana*	P. racemosa
P. incana*	4,0944^A <.0001			P. incana*	0,0642^A 0,3161
	17,7109^B <.0001				0,1042^B 0,0008
	3,1322^C 0,0001				0,0538^C 0,3157
P. racemosa	13,9797^A <.0001	13,6448^A <.0001		P. racemosa	0,2851^A <.0001	0,2757^A <.0001
	18,5280^B <.0001	10,9787^B <.0001			0,2160^B <.0001	0,1803^B <.0001
	11,0414^C <.0001	9,5095^C <.0001			0,1802^C <.0001	0,1541^C <.0001
P. racemosa*	12,4966^A <.0001	12,0208^A <.0001	3,8093^A <.0001	P. racemosa*	0,2719^A <.0001	0,2535^A <.0001	0,1100^A 0,0164
	17,8737^B <.0001	11,3668^B <.0001	3,5197^B <.0001		0,2166^B <.0001	0,1825^B <.0001	0,0652^B 0,2705
	10,4730^C <.0001	9,0965^C <.0001	2,5844^C 0,0003		0,1521^C <.0001	0,1322^C 0,0001	0,0599^C 0,1224

Table 4. P values for the permutation test (1000 rounds) based on the Mahalanobis and Procrustes distance of flowers (distance values for populations A, B and C, respectively) between species (groups)

A: Mahalanobis distance				B: Procrustes distance
Groups	P. incana	P. incana*	P. racemosa	Groups	P. incana	P. incana*	P. racemosa
P. incana*	4,9638^A <.0001			P. incana*	0,1753^A 0,0041
	2,1478^B 0,0029				0,0794^B 0,1295
	3,7710^C <.0001				0,0569^C 0,0792
P. racemosa	4,5408^A <.0001	4,5781^A <.0001		P.racemosa	0,1515^A 0,0922	0,1123^A 0,1515
	4,8258^B <.0001	4,3266^B <.0001			0,1124^B 0,0124	0,1145^B 0,0120
	6,5212^C <.0001	6,1049^C <.0001			0,0713^C 0,0728	0,0836^C 0,0210
P. racemosa*	4,9598^A <.0001	6,0697^A <.0001	3,2725^A <.0001	P. racemosa*	0,1819^A 0,0054	0,1174^A 0,0015	0,1261^A 0,1213
	4,0860^B <.0001	3,6939^B <.0001	3,0409^B <.0001		0,1108^B 0,0191	0,1241^B 0,0042	0,0636^B 0,4081
	5,5313^C <.0001	5,6570^C <.0001	2,3894^C 0,0008		0,0803^C 0,0125	0,1027^C 0,0007	0,0508^C 0,3124

Figure 4. Result of the analysis of canonical variants (CVA) for the compound leaves and flowers of parental species and reforested jointly (P. incana * and P. racemosa *). Scatter plots of CV1 and CV2 variables with a 95% confidence level. A) Population A (Illinizas Ecological Reserve), B (Mojanda Lagoons) and C (Cayambe Coca National Park) for compound leaves, B) Population A, for flowers, C) Population B for flowers and D) Population C for flowers