Stability of development and phenogenetic analysis in silver birch and downy birch

The article presents the data of experiments on determination of development stability (using leaf blades as an example) in trees obtained by self-pollination and open pollination of families from maternal trees of downy birch B-11 and B-14 (of seed origin). A one-way ANOVA analysis of variance was performed for the leaf blade length trait for two species – downy birch and silver birch, differing in reproduction systems, allogamous and autogamous forms. As a result, it was shown that the leaf blade length in highly self-fertile forms of downy birch significantly differs with different methods of pollination of maternal trees – self-pollination and open pollination. The maternal trees of these species were selected in the Voronezh State Nature Biosphere Reserve named after V.M. Peskov (VGPBZ), where test cultures F1 were created by hybridization and self-pollination (sq. 298). The data on the violation of bilateral development of birch leaf blades, which is typical for ecologically unfavorable habitats of trees, were obtained, although the experimental plants are in ecologically clean conditions of the VGPBZ. In the first case, for all downy birch trees (regardless of the pollination method), control scores were obtained that exceeded the standard indicator given in the regulatory documents for assessing the state of the environment, the excesses amounted to 2.4 (B-14 sp) to 5.6 (B-11 op) times. Phenotypic instability of vegetative organs in the polyploid birch species compared to the diploid one was confirmed, which can affect the productivity of birch plantations. Keywords: developmental stability, leaf blade, silver birch, downy birch, allogamy, autogamy, phenotype, ANOVA analysis