Leaf stomata characteristics Diversity of Oriental beech in Hyrcanian forests

Fagus orientalis Lipsky - is one of the main Hyrcanian tree elements that - distributed throughout Hyrcanian forests from Astara to Ziarat vally in Gorgan. Knowing the specific characteristics of leaf stomata in these populations, in addition to its systemic value, assists to further identify their adoption to the specific ecological conditions. The seedlings of four populations in throughout the north including two elevations were transferred to the greenhouse and grown under the same environmental conditions. The stomata characteristics were studied on sampling from leaf attached to the seedling including total, close and open stomata densities in square millimeter, stomata dimensions and area, length and wide of guard cells in thousandth of micron and stomata type. The most effective traits were determinate by Factor analysis. In this method, the factors extraction was done using principal component analysis that had most variances. The Pearson correlation between the scores of the extracted factors and climate variables and altitude was used to determine the relationship between environmental factors and the traits. The results showed that the type of stomata was anomocytic and the most of traits had significant differences among the populations so that stomata density was increased from west to east, but the area of the aperture reduced. The significant correlation between stomata characteristics and the factors such as temperature, precipitation and elevation were observed. Generally, the discriminant function analysis indicated that there were differences between Kheyrood in high and down elevation and also Shastkolateh and Shafaroud populations.