Estimation of genetic diversity

Plant conservation means different things to different people. To some it means ensuring that a particular species is represented in the flora of a particular region. To the contributors to this book, this objective is not sufficient; the primary aim is the conservation of the range of genetic diversity present within a plant taxon, so that we are actually considering the maintenance of a gene pool and the conservation of alleles. This may appear a facile comment to informed readers, but seems a point worth making since if one is really only interested in species survival at particular sites then what follows in this chapter is quite irrelevant.