Agriculturae Conspectus Scientificus, Vol 81, No 1 (2016)

Comparison of Morphological Characteristics of Carob Tree (Ceratonia siliqua L.) Pods and Seeds of Populations Collected from Two Distant Croatian Islands: Drvenik Mali and Mali Lošinj

Siniša SREČEC, Dario KREMER, Ksenija KARLOVIĆ, Tomislava PEREMIN VOLF, Renata ERHATIĆ, Zvjezdana AUGUSTINOVIĆ, Ivka KVATERNJAK, Snježana BOLARIĆ, Dubravka DUJMOVIĆ PURGAR, Valerija DUNKIĆ, Nada BEZIĆ, Marko RANDIĆ

Pages: 61-64

Summary


It is well-known that carob tree (Ceratonia siliqua L.) is not overspread in Croatian north Adriatic islands and coast. It is hardly possible to find spontaneous (not planted) trees of Ceratonia siliqua northern from the island of Dugi Otok and Zadar coast. During the first investigated year of research project TEUCLIC financed by Croatian Foundation for Science, we found the northernmost habitat of carob tree on the island of Mali Lošinj. This paper deals with the results of morphometric analysis of carob tree pods and seeds of Mali Lošinj population, compared with the same analysis of carob tree population of Drvenik Mali, island placed in middle-Dalmatian archipelago, in order to find the possible differences of most important morphological traits between these two relatively distant populations. After provided morphometric research the differences in length and thickness of carob pods between these two populations were not significant. However, the pods of carob trees of Mali Lošinj population had significantly smaller weight and smaller number of seeds per pod in the comparison with Drvenik Mali population. Also, width of carob pods of Mali Lošinj population was significantly smaller in the comparison with Drvanik Mali population, as well as weight and average number of seeds per pod. The carob seeds of Drvenik Mali population are significantly longer, wider and heavier in the comparison with the Mali Lošinj population, in spite of the fact that the seeds of population of Mali Lošinj were significantly thicker in the comparison with seeds of Drvenik Mali population. The differences between these morphometric traits cannot be explained by environmental conditions. Differences in morphometric traits of carob pods and seeds between these two populations are primarily caused by genetic factors, which have to be confirmed by the analysis of genomic DNA isolated from the leaves.


Keywords


carob tree, Ceratonia siliqua, morphometric traits, environmental conditions, genetic factors

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