An approach to phenotypic analysis and environmental variability. The examples of the genera Dianthus L. and Lotus L. in the north of Portugal

The analysis of the correlation between phenotypic plasticity and environmental variability has been very useful to describe the morphologic responses of individuals to environmental factors affecting them (in the present contribution the altitudinal variation), from a genecological perpective. However, the literature shows that the studies in this area have had a monospecific or monogeneric use. As a consequence, intergeneric comparative descriptions have not been possible. In the present work we propose an analytical method to compare the morphological expressivity of individuals included in the genera Dianthus and Lotus from the north of Portugal by means of a contingency matrix. This matrix was elaborated on the basis of amplitude parameters, in order to describe the variability present in the basic matrix of each genus studied. The results pointed out the existence of opposite phenotypic behaviours dependent on the altitudinal variation, thus indicating the importance of the analysis between different groups of taxa as a reference for the comparison of their morphological expressivities.