Today, on May 28, Marianne Kaldra, a member of our workgroup, defended her master's thesis titled “The role of heterostyly for maintaining genetic diversity in Primula veris” for grade A. The supervisors of the thesis were Tsipe Aavik and Sabrina Träger from our workgroup. Marianne found that deviation from equal morph balance had a negative effect on the genetic diversity of Primula veris in the grasslands of Saaremaa. Overgrowth of the study populations did not affect the genetic diversity, as open and overgrown populations exhibited similar genetic diversity values in both morph types. The study shows that deviations from morph balance caused by habitat fragmentation have a negative impact on the genetic diversity of Primula veris. A summary of the work in English and Estonian can be read here. Congratulations!
