A study published in the journal Plants, People, Planet classified more than 80,000 plant species around the world and found that most of them will become extinct because people do not need them. This indicates that in the future Plant communities will be more homogeneous than today.
Araucaria muelleri, a coniferous tree endemic to New Caledonia, is threatened by habitat destruction, forest fires and nickel mining. Image credit: Joey Santore/Smithsonian Institution (CC-BY-NC)
Quantifying Plant Survival Dilemma in the Anthropocene Study: Humans Will Make More Species Extinct
This study covers less than 30% of known plant species, but it clearly demonstrates the threats to biodiversity. The researchers believe this study serves as a wake-up call for the need for more research in this area in the future.
“The bottleneck of the Anthropocene has already occurred,” said John Kress, lead author of the paper and curator emeritus of botany at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Start counting the number of species that might survive the Anthropocene bottleneck.”
Researchers at the Smithsonian Institution have accurately classified the plant species most affected by humans since the beginning of the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene is a geological era characterized by profound human influence on the earth. In this era, global warming, deforestation and other negative consequences of industrialization are all problems caused by humans.
The researchers analyzed data on 86,592 vascular plant species, gathering information from international databases on the uses of these plants, including whether they are crops of economic value to humans, invasive weedy plant species, or endangered species in need of protection. Species are still rare species that are illegally traded.
Based on this information, scholars classified the current and future survival status of plants, describing eight different categories. They found that human activities will make more plant species extinct rather than help plants survive.
Magnolia trees (Magnolia ekmanii) in Haiti are mostly cut down for firewood. Image source: Martin Reith/Smithsonian Institution (CC-BY-NC)
6,749 plants are helpful to humans and are classified as survival winners by scholars
According to the study, 6,749 plant species are winners because they are helpful to humans, such as corn, rice, wheat and other crops, covering 40% of the earth’s surface, and plants that have become extinct in the wild but survive in cities, such as It’s the ginkgo trees that grow on every block in New York City. Another 164 species of plants that are of no use to humans were also winners, mainly invasive weed species such as kudzu, which is notorious for “devouring southern vines.”
Some 20,290 plant species are classified as losers, mainly because they are of no use to humans and are already recognized as endangered species, such as the magnolia tree (Magnolia ekmanii) in Haiti, which is mostly cut down for firewood and nowhere else. No growth. Plant species with smaller clades[1], such as cycads, redwoods and junipers of the Cupressaceae family, and an ancient conifer family called Araucaria muelleri, are most likely to disappear altogether.
Scientists classified 26,002 species as potential losers and 18,664 species as potential winners. The last two categories are neutral and extinct 571 plant species.
The results show that biodiversity will be greatly reduced in the future, which will further lead to the loss of animal diversity and make ecosystems more vulnerable to extreme weather, climate change or human impacts.
Ginkgo is classified as a winner by scholars because of its ability to survive in cities. Photo credit: G.A. Cooper/Smithsonian Institution
The status of plant species is unclear. 75% of vascular plants were not included in the study.
“The authors used 86,592 datasets, covering about 25 percent of the world’s vascular plants,” said Barnabas Daru, an assistant professor of biology at Texas A&M University who was not involved in the study. “This means that a large proportion of The status of plant species is unclear, especially in areas with the most diverse flora in the world but few samples, such as South America, Africa and Southeast Asia, and there are clear gaps in knowledge.”
Daru noted that there are other data sets that could help complete the puzzle, and possibly different models of winners and losers.
Richard Corlett, a professor at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden who was not involved in the research, said that as long as enough efforts are made, any plant can be saved from extinction, and it can be collected alive, used in seed banks or cryogenic tissue storage. There should therefore be stronger calls for zero plant extinction.
“How many people can name a threatened plant? Plant conservation is not like animal conservation, where animals continue to go extinct despite our efforts to save them. When it comes to plant conservation, no species’ future is hopeless, at least. But not completely extinct.”