We now have the tools to study the health of populations of the ram's head lady's slipper orchid.

Liam Markey

Overview

Cypripedium arietinum, also known as the ram’s head lady’s slipper, is distributed in small populations among regions of the northern US and northeastern Canada. Endangered in New Hampshire as well as in Vermont, populations of these plants across the two states are small and sparse (North American Orchid Conservation Center, 2021). The genetic diversity of any of these local populations is currently unknown. Genetic diversity, the amount of genetic variance across individual plants, allows a population to better respond to an adverse event - thus, it is important to assess the genetic diversity of a population to ensure their survival. To do this, a specific region of the plant genome called a microsatellite can be targeted for copying using DNA primers, which act as parameters for the region. The objective of this experiment has been to test 10 microsatellite primers originally developed for Cyp. tibeticum (Li et al., 2017) in order to gauge their effectiveness with the ram’s head species. The most effective was primer M289, but further testing is needed to confirm the results for the other primers.

From the student

It all began for me when I entered the New Hampshire Academy of Science's 3-week summer research program in the summer of 2020, after finishing my freshman year of high school. I decided to focus my research on plant science, and that summer I studied the genetic diversity of a population of showy lady's slipper orchids in Strafford, Vermont. That research was presented at last year's virtual AJAS conference, and this year I present research on a similar species, the ram's head lady's slipper orchid. My research this year focuses on getting the right tools to be able to study the genetic diversity of this species.