Morphological Variation and Ecological Structure of Chrysophyllum albidum G. Don

Chrysophyllum albidum is a tropical forest species which plays tremendous socioeconomic role in west Africa because of its fruits large comsuption and trade.

Morphological variation and ecological structure of Chrysophyllum albidum G. Don were assessed in Benin in order to contribute to the species domestication. Dendrometric parameters such as diameter at breast height, total height, and bole heigt were measures from 120 individual trees across two ecological zones and four different provenances. In addition, morphometric parameter related to fruits and seeds such as fruit length, fruit width, fruit weigh, seed length, seed width and seed weigh were measured for 1,800 fruits and 1,800 seeds. Principal component analysis was performed on the untransformed morphometric data using the correlation matrix.

Diameter and height classes distribution of C. albidum in each ecological zone adjusted to Weibull distribution showed a bell shaped curve with left dissymmetry, characteristic of young stands (form coefficient between 1 and 3.6). From principal component analysis, no differentiation was observed, indicating that accessions from different agroecological zones were similar morphologically. However analysis of variance performed separately on morphometric data revealed some significant difference among agroecological zones and among provenances as far as bole height (P = .000) and fruits and seeds size (P = .021) are concerned.

Although morphological variability in C. albidum between provenances and between agro-ecological zones is low there is pathways for selection purposes since bole height as well as fruits and seed weight exhibited large morphological variability among agro-ecological zones.