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.