Comparison of quantitative genetic parameters between two natural populations of a selfing plant species, Medicago truncatula Gaertn

In this paper we compare mean values, heritability estimates, coefficient of genetic variation, and genetic correlations among several fitness components of two natural populations of a selfing plant species, Medicago truncatula L. It is shown that the population that had been found most polymorphic for molecular markers in a previous study was also the most variable for quantitative characters. Depending on the traits, the larger heritabilities in this population were due to either larger coefficients of genetic variances or smaller coefficients of environmental variances. Whereas genetic and phenotypic correlation matrices were very similar within each population, they were quite different between populations. In particular, although a positive correlation between age and size at maturity was found in both populations, the correlation between age at maturity and reproductive success was negative in the more variable population (late flowering plant, with a larger size at flowering, produced fewer pods), whereas no correlation was observed in the less variable population. We suggest that while in the less variable population all individuals have a high reproductive effort, several strategies coexist in the more variable population, with some early-flowering genotypes showing a high reproductive effort and other late-flowering genotypes showing a larger competitive ability through increased vegetative growth.