Genetics Metrics Used in Rare Plant Conservation: A Primer for Non Experts

Storyboard contributed by: Dr. Christy Edwards and Brock Mashburn, Missouri Botanical Garden

Genetics insights can be critical for managing rare plant populations, but not all professionals with rare plants in their care have a background in genetics, which can make interpreting genetic studies difficult. The goal of this video is to give an introduction of conservation genetics metrics commonly found in rare plant conservation genetics papers for non-experts. Topics covered include: allelic diversity, private alleles, observed vs. expected heterozygosity, Fst, effective population size, and dimension reduction.