Molecular and morphological differentiation in Limonium dufourii (Plumbaginaceae), an endangered Mediterranean plant

We have analyzed the morphological andmolecular variation in individuals from aLimonium dufourii population in which we hadpreviously described the presence of twomarkedly different molecular haplotypes bymeans of RAPDs and AFLPs. Ten differentmorphological variables were scored in each of72 individuals and their molecular haplotypegroup was established by RAPD analysis. Thevariation observed in the 10 morphometricvariables was explained by four dimensions in aprincipal components analysis, and a plot ofeach individual in the plane defined by the twofirst dimensions did not show any significantgrouping until the molecular haplotype wasincorporated into the plot. A discriminantanalysis performed using the molecularhaplotype as the grouping variable resulted in88.9% of correctly classified cases, thusreflecting a high correlation betweenmorphometric and molecular variation in theseindividuals. We discuss the relevance of thiscorrelation for the conservation strategypreviously proposed for this species.