High risk of extinction across the flowering plant tree of life
Félix Forest · Ruth Brown · Sven Buerki · Jonathan F. Colville · Justin Moat · Eimear Nic Lughadha · Nisha R. Owen · Domitilla C. Raimondo · Malin Rivers · James Rosindell · Barnaby E. Walker · Steven P. Bachman · Sebastian Pipins · Rikki Gumbs · Matilda J. M. Brown
期刊Science
类型Article
发表2026-05-07
卷期页392(6798): 655-659
收录2026-10-09
被浏览…
关键词flowering plantsextinction risktree of lifeconservation prioritizationplant conservationbiodiversity policyconservation effectiveness
标签—
Global biodiversity policies recognize the necessity to preserve evolutionary lineages, as their diversity underpins current and future benefits to people and the future of life on Earth. Plants are largely absent from global biodiversity assessments, resulting in a taxonomic imbalance that has undermined their conservation for decades. We present a tree of life and extinction risk estimates for all species of flowering plants (angiosperms), representing a global assessment of their threatened evolutionary history. We estimate that 21.2% of angiosperm evolutionary history is at risk of extinction and identify 9945 priority species that disproportionately account for total threatened evolutionary history. These prioritizations serve to redress imbalances between plants and animals, monitor conservation effectiveness, and optimize resource allocation in the face of increasing human pressures on biodiversity.

@article{forest2026,
author = {Félix Forest and Ruth Brown and Sven Buerki and Jonathan F. Colville and Justin Moat and Eimear Nic Lughadha and Nisha R. Owen and Domitilla C. Raimondo and Malin Rivers and James Rosindell and Barnaby E. Walker and Steven P. Bachman and Sebastian Pipins and Rikki Gumbs and Matilda J. M. Brown},
title = {High risk of extinction across the flowering plant tree of life},
journal = {Science},
year = {2026},
volume = {392},
number = {6798},
pages = {655-659},
doi = {10.1126/science.adz0773},
publisher = {American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)},
}· END ·