Morphological Variation Analysis of Five Different Geographic Populations of Paphia textile Along South China Sea

The multivariation analysis methods(cluster analysis, principal component analysis and discriminate analysis) were used to compare the eleven morphological characters of five populations of Paphia textile in Zhanjiang, Shenzhen, Shantou, Sanya, and Xiamen. The results of clusters analysis and principal component analysis indicated that the morphological characters were similar among the populations in Sanya and Xiamen, while the polulations in Zhanjiang, Shenzhen and Shantou were morphologically grouped together, all of which were apparently divided into two groups. Three principal components were constructed by the principal component analysis method, the contributory ratio of the first principal component was 37.489%; that of the second principal and the third principal were 17.803% and 10.704%, respectively; the cumulative contributory ratio was 66.005%.Then, the discrimination functions of the five populations were set up, the identification accuracy was 43.3%-66.7% (P1) and 43.5%-72.7%(P2). The total discriminate accuracy was 52.6%. These data suggested that the morphological variations of Paphia textile were resulted from the joint effects of genetic components and environment, Combined with studies of molecular genetics, the genetic characteristics of the five populations will be described more exactly, which can provide science basis for germplasm resources protection and genetic breeding.