Department of Biology, University of Puerto Rico, PO Box 23360, San Juan, PR 00931-3360.
Genetic diversity affects the evolutionary potencial of any species.
The geographic distribution of plants is a good predictor of such diversity. In general widespread species exhibit higher levels of genetic diversity than rare taxa. We also looked at the amount of genetic differentiation among populations. Allozyme variation indices for Lepanthes species in Puerto Rico are higher than the reported average for plant species. Both rare and widespread Lepanthes show similar levels of allozyme variation.