Estudos taxonômicos das subespécies micropholis guyanensis (a. dc.) pierre subsp. duckeana (baehni) t. d. penn., micropholis guyanensis (a. dc.) pierre subsp. guyanensis e micropholis guyanensis (a. dc.) pierre subsp. 3 (sapotaceae juss.): uma abordagem biossistemática

Abstract

The genus Micropholis, has been studied by several authors and recently, Pennington (2006) proposed three subspecies to Micropholis guyanensis (A. DC.) Pierre, based on the variation of morphological characters presented by the species, such as shape and size of the leaf, and length of the petiole. However, this species has a broad geographical distribution and in the region of Manaus-AM the overlap of these morphological characters does not contribute, in most cases, for the distinction of these subspecies. The general objective of this dissertation was to perform a biosystematic study with the specie Micropholis guyanensis, with a broader approach, using reproductive, micromorphologic and morphometric data (Analysis Multivariate of Nonmetric Multidimensional Scaling (NMDS) for 14 characters of leaves and flowers), to clearly sustain the subspecies delimitation. The results showed that there is a large continuum between the subspecies M. guyanensis subsp. guyanensis, M. guyanensis subsp. duckeana and M. guyanensis subsp. 3 not being possible characterize them as distinct. Therefore, the results suggest, considering not only the morphological differences, but also that these subspecies are sympatric that Micropholis guyanensis guyanensis, M. guyanensis subsp. duckeana and M. guyanensis subsp. 3 should be regarded simply as a highly variable specie, in their vegetative characters and in the floral reproductive mode.