Does Fertilizer Influence Shape and Asymmetry in Wheat Leaf?

Abstract

The paper considers the bilaterally symmetrical genetic traits and their variability under the influence of environmental factor. The method of geometric morphometrics was applied. The tasks of the work included the comparing the shape and asymmetry of winter wheat leaf blade under cultivating with different doses of mineral fertilizer. From each individual from 20 plants 4–6 laminas were collected. Four levels of the widely used mineral fertilizer NPK were used. The statistical significance of centroid size in all groups of plants was at the same level (p = 0.0001–0.001). A clear fluctuating asymmetry was not detected. A statistically significant directional asymmetry was obtained (MS “side”, p = 0.0001), and therefore a mixture of both types of asymmetry was found in all samples. An increase in the dose of fertilizer did not affect the stability of development and caused a higher variability in the symmetric, longitudinal component of the variation in the shape than in the asymmetric component of variability.