RELATIONS AMONG GROWTH TRAITS IN NATIVE AND EXOTIC FOREST SPECIES - 10.14688/1984-3801/gst.v7n2p86-97

The knowledge about the relations among growth traits in native forest species is paramount in forest recovery programs, mainly when characteristics of easy measurement present high and positive correlation with characteristics of difficult measurement. The natural environment’s edaphoclimatic characteristics are not homogeneous. Plants respond to this variation of environmental conditions by changing the resources allocation rate among the distinct parts of their body. The objective of this study was to estimate the phenotypic correlation among growth traits and to compare the performance among the different native and exotic species in an area under forest recovery. Growth traits, such as the plant height, stem diameter at ground and the relation height/stem diameter in 12 native species and an exotic one were evaluated. The correlations among the studied characteristics ranged among the species, but all of them presented significant and positive correlation coefficients. The species that presented the best performance was Clitoria fairchildiana R.A. Howard . The soil heterogeneity did not influence in the development of the evaluated species.