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The Bartlett Orchid Protection Project had the oppurtunity to purchase wetland marshlands home to two orchid species:  Orchis isozymus and Orchus polyzymis.  Our organization located six marshlands home to populations of one species.  In each marshland there is only one type of species. Of the six sites, three were home to  Orchis isozymus and three were home to Orchus polyzymis.  Due to limited funding we were forced to limit our purchase to four marshlands.  Based upon alloenzyme elctrophoresis data, and the genetic differentiation among the populations we decided which four sites to purchase.

To see the mathmatical data we used to make our decisions please  click here.

It was decided to purchase all populations one and two of the Orchis isozymus populations to protect the genetic diversity of the species because there was great amount of genetic divergence among the populations compared to the little divergence among the populations of Orchis polyzymus.  Populations one and two had a greater amounnt of heterozygosity than site three.  It would have been beneficial to purchase all three populations, but the organization seeks to protect the overall species diversity of both species. 

If all three populations of Orchis isozymus were purchased it would lead to only one population of Orchis isozymus being protected.  The organization worried that the risk of a catatrophic event to the isolated population could result in all genetic diversity being lost.

Populations one and three of the Orchis polyzymus were selected solely on their higher levels of expected heterozygosity.  There was little divergence in genetic diversity, therefore each population was likely that the genetic diversity is equally spread out in each population.  The Orchis isozymus had less heterozygosity possibly due to the bottle neck effect of reproducing with a small population and inbreeding.  To help protect the different forms of the gene it was decided that it was best to protect as much of the populations as possible.  Also there was a a large amount of heterozygosity in the Orchis polyzymus populations, compared to the with the Orchis isozymus populations.  We decided to purchase population one of the Orchis polyzymus because there was a higher expected herterozygosity of this specific allele.  We determined  that each population of Orchis polyzymus was similar in it genetic makeup, compared to the each population of Orchis isozymus.