Where Have All the Flowers Gone? Flower Heaven

As much as one-third of all flowering plants face extinction at the hands of humans, according to new research—and that’s not even factoring in climate change. Such a die-off would have a devastating impact on the food chain. As one of the researchers put it, “if you get rid of [plants] you get rid of a lot of the things above them.”

The Guardian:

“If we take the number of species that are currently known to be threatened, and add to that those that are yet to be discovered, we can estimate that between 27% and 33% of all flowering plants will be threatened with extinction,” said David Roberts, one of the co-authors, of the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent.

The paper adds: “These estimates are based on immediate threat, and do not consider further development of destructive factors - including climate disruption.” The paper’s third, lead, author was Lucas Joppa of Microsoft Research in Cambridge.

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Flickr / Hamed Saber (CC-BY)