J. Szweykowski et al., GEOGRAPHIC-DISTRIBUTION OF PELLIA SPP (HEPATICAE, METZGERIALES) IN POLAND BASED ON ELECTROPHORETIC IDENTIFICATION, Acta Societatis Botanicorum Poloniae, 64(1), 1995, pp. 59-70
Many species of liverworts (Hepaticae) are morphologically plastic to
such an extent that their proper recognition may cause difficulties ev
en for a specialist. Central European species of the genus Pellia are
notorious in this respect. Searching for less malleable diagnostic cha
racters (than morphological and/or anatomical ones) we showed recently
that the electrophoretic phenotypes (obtained by means of separation
of enzyme proteins on starch gels) can be used for reliable identifica
tion of Pellia species with much reliability. During the last 20 years
we performed electrophoretic identification of over 500 (exactly 541)
colonies and discovered that at least two of the ''classic'' species
of the genus Pellia are in fact species complexes comprising taxa havi
ng the character of sibling species. In this paper we have mapped all
stations of electrophoretically identified Pellia species, including t
he sibling species mentioned; marked differences in their geographical
distributions are discussed. Our work clearly shows that using more n
atural taxa (i.e. genetically defined sibling species instead of weakl
y characterised species complexes) in bryogeography, one can obtain me
aningful results even in a geographically restricted area as, for inst
ance in Poland.