To date, most conservation efforts,

To date, most conservation efforts, either in situ or
ex situ, have proceeded with little information on the
genetic diversity that was being conserved and there is
an urgent need to remedy this situation. The development
of such improved descriptions involves not only
describing the variation observed, but also identifying
the major factors likely to affect the genetic structure
of plant populations and determining the effect they
have on the amount of variation in a population and
the distribution of alleles in it. Such factors include climatic,
edaphic and biotic ones as well as those specific
to the populations (e.g. population size, selection), or
to the species (e.g. ploidy, breeding system, linkage)