title: Chemometric investigation of light-shade effects on essential oil yield and morphology of Moroccan Myrtus communis L.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  To investigate the effect of environmental factors such as light and shade on essential oil yield and morphological traits of Moroccan Myrtus communis, a chemometric study was conducted on 20 individuals growing under two contrasting light environments.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The study of individual's parameters by principal component analysis has shown that essential oil yield, altitude, and leaves thickness were positively correlated between them and negatively correlated with plants height, leaves length and leaves width. Principal component analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis have also shown that the individuals of each sampling site were grouped separately. The one-way ANOVA test has confirmed the effect of light and shade on essential oil yield and morphological parameters by showing a statistically significant difference between them from the shaded side to the sunny one. Finally, the multiple linear model containing main, interaction and quadratic terms was chosen for the modeling of essential oil yield in terms of morphological parameters.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Sun plants have a small height, small leaves length and width, but they are thicker and richer in essential oil than shade plants which have shown almost the opposite. The highlighted multiple linear model can be used to predict essential oil yield in the studied area.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Functional Ecology and Environment, Faculty of Sciences and Techniques, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Fez, Morocco ; Application Organic Chemistry Laboratory, Faculty of Sciences and Techniques, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Fez, Morocco.
authors.forename: Mouhcine
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fadil
authors.affiliation: Application Organic Chemistry Laboratory, Faculty of Sciences and Techniques, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Fez, Morocco.
authors.forename: Abdellah
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Farah
authors.affiliation: Application Organic Chemistry Laboratory, Faculty of Sciences and Techniques, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Fez, Morocco.
authors.forename: Bouchaib
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ihssane
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Functional Ecology and Environment, Faculty of Sciences and Techniques, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Fez, Morocco.
authors.forename: Taoufik
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Haloui
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Microbial Biotechnology, Faculty of Sciences and Techniques, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Fez, Morocco.
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lebrazi
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences and Techniques, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Fez, Morocco.
authors.forename: Badreddine
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zghari
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Functional Ecology and Environment, Faculty of Sciences and Techniques, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Fez, Morocco.
authors.forename: Saâd
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rachiq
keywords: Chemometrics methods; Essential oil yield; Morphological parameters; Shade plants; Sun plants