Headspace volatiles isolated from twigs of Picea omorika from Serbia

Abstract

The variability of volatiles isolated from twigs by the static headspace (HS) method in seven natural populations of Picea omorika from Serbia was investigated for the first time. In the overall chemical profile, monoterpenes strongly dominated hydrocarbons as the most volatile compounds (95.7%). The dominant compounds were ?-pinene (29.5 %), ?-pinene (25.7%) and myrcene (13.0%), totaling 68.2% of the volatiles on average. The following nine volatiles were found to be present in medium-to-high amounts (0.5-10%): tricyclene, camphene, ?-phellandrene, ?-3-carene, p-cymene, ?-phellandrene, terpinolene, (E)-caryophyllene, and germacrene D. Out of the 78 volatiles detected, the six most abundant (?-pinene, ?-pinene, myrcene, ?-3-carene, ?-phellandrene and camphene) were selected for principle component analysis (PCA) and cluster analyses (CA). PCA revealed a high degree of similarity between populations, while CA showed a degree of separation of two populations from the others. The presented results are in agreement with previous phytochemical and molecular analyses of this species that confirm high variability in both specialized metabolites and genetic markers.