Spatial trends of phenotypic diversity between colonies of wild raspberry Rubus idaeus

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
• The question ‘are fragmented wild populations of raspberry adaptively differentiated from each other and from cultivated forms of the same species?’ is addressed here. • Plants collected from the coast, where commercial raspberries are grown, northwards by 49 km to an altitude of 600 m in Tayside, Scotland, were cultured in two common environments. Twenty phenotypic traits were recorded over 2 yr, on vegetative primocanes and then the single dominant floricane retained for year 2. A novel approach is presented for selecting traits that best discriminate between individuals using principal coordinate analysis. Phenotypic variation among accessions was then quantified using principal coordinate analysis followed by principal component analysis. • A consistent north–south trend was found. Plants from northern sites were shorter, bushier with less lateral growth and fewer flowers per lateral on the dominant fruiting cane. Plants from southern sites produced few, tall primocanes with greater cane diameters, lateral growth and flowering. The results were consistent across test environments. • The results confirm substantial, adaptive differentiation between populations and suggest a limited effect of cultivation on wild forms.