Ecological and Geographical Variability of Annual Shoots of Hawthorn in Dagestan

The paper presents the results of an ecological-geographical experiment on 4 species of hawthorn at two experimental bases of the Mountain Botanical Garden (1100 m and 1700 m a.s.l.). To identify intraspecific and interspecific variability of shoots and leaves, descriptive statistics, Student’s t-test, one- and two-way ANOVA and discriminant analyses were used, for which 10 quantitative signs of the annual shoot of individuals in the virginal period were analysed. The adaptive abilities and morphological features’ variability of annual shoots and leaves of hawthorn under different growing conditions were determined. At the age of five, the samples grown at an altitude of 1700 m a.s.l. have the largest average indicators values. Differences depending on the place of cultivation were most pronounced in C. pseudoheterophylla, for other samples, the effect of altitude is insignificant. One- and two-factor ANOVA in a hierarchical complex made it possible to determine the difference-defining traits, as well as the degree to which the ecotope affected the variability of traits. Having considered interspecific differences/similarities in terms of shoots’ and leaves’ traits under different growing conditions and using discriminant analysis, we were able to draw a preliminary conclusion: subsectional differences/similarities were most clearly manifested at an altitude of 1700 m, and interspecific differences – at an altitude of 1100 m. a.s.l. The work was carried out within the unique scientific installation “The System of Experimental Bases of the Mountain Botanical Garden”.