3.3. Niche overlap and conservatism among M. geocarpumand genetic populations
The results of the niche overlap (D) indicated that the current distribution of Kersting’s groundnut species and its genetic groups was not significantly different. For all pairwise comparisons, between niches of the species and Pop1, Pop2 and between niches of the two genetic groups, we found Schoener’s D values of 0.935, 0.907 and 0.878, respectively.
In addition, our results suggested that niche overlap tests performed differently based on D Values obtained from identity and similarity tests. We rejected the null hypothesis (P < 0.01, Fig. 4a) that niches between the species and genetic Pop 1 were identical, but they were similar (P > 0.05, Fig. 4d). Predicted niches between M. geocarpum and genetic Pop 2, while identical (P > 0.05, Fig. 4b), were not conserved (P < 0.01, Fig. 4e). We rejected both the null hypothesis that niches were identical (P < 0.01, Fig. 4c) and that niches were conserved (P < 0.05, Fig. 4f) between the two genetic groups.