South American genus Lasiocephalus colonized high altitudes of the tropical Andes, the so called páramo, from lower elevations of the Andean forest. Páramo is a specific high-altitude environment characterised by pronounced diurnal changes in temperature, growing season over the entire year, low average temperatures, generally high humidity, and intense solar radiation. These specific environmental conditions are reflected by anatomical characters of the species. Given the known phylogeny of the group it was possible to observe anatomical adaptations along steep gradient of environmental conditions from forest to páramo. The hypothesis about adaptive changes that occurred during the colonization of the páramo habitats was confirmed. Observed characteristics were, for example, leaf area and thickness, epidermal cells cuticle and cell wall thickness, epidermal cells lumen height, ratio of palisade and spongy parenchyma, stomatal area, stomata length and width, stomata pore length and sieve elements average area. Results suggest that the anatomy of the plants reflect the environmental conditions of the habitats rather than the species phylogeny.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:nusl.cz/oai:invenio.nusl.cz:306684 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Ježková, Barbora |
| Contributors | Soukup, Aleš, Lhotáková, Zuzana |
| Source Sets | Czech ETDs |
| Language | Czech |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess |
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