There are several factors that may lead to a population’s extinction, one of these is inbreeding depression. Inbreeding depression is the reduction in fitness within a population as a result of inbreeding. This is a major issue in conservation because of the negative effects of inbreeding depression affect all aspects of reproduction.

This project will focus on comparing seed production of different control crosses of O. primiveris and how could that influence the species in natural conditions. Our intern will be cleaning fruits obtained from control crosses and it will test if the level of relationship between mom and dad influences the number of seeds obtained across populations of the species.