Composition of leaf n-alkanes in three Satureja montana L. subspecies from the Balkan peninsula: ecological and taxonomic aspects.

The composition of the epicuticular leaf n-alkanes of eight populations of three Satureja montana subspecies (S. montana L. subsp. pisidica (Wettst.) Šilić, S. montana L. subsp. montana, and S. montana L. subsp. variegata (Host) P. W. Ball), from central and western areas of the Balkan Peninsula was characterized by GC-FID and GC/MS analyses. In the leaf waxes, 15 n-alkane homologs with chain-lengths ranging from C21 to C35 were identified. The main n-alkane in almost all samples was n-nonacosane (C29 ), but differences in the contents of three other dominant n-alkanes allowed separating the coastal from the continental populations. The diversity and variability of the epicuticular-leaf-n-alkane patterns and their relation to different geographic and bioclimatic parameters were analyzed by several statistical methods (principal component, discriminant, and cluster analyses as well as the Mantel test). All tests showed a high correlation between the leaf n-alkane pattern and the geographical distribution of the investigated populations, confirming the differentiation between S. montana subsp. pisidica and the other two subspecies. The S. montana subsp. variegata and S. montana subsp. montana populations are geographically closer and their differentiation according to the leaf-n-alkane patterns was not clear, even though there was some indication of discrimination between them. Moreover, most of the bioclimatic parameters related to temperature were highly correlated with the differentiation of the coastal and the continental populations.