{"id":557452,"date":"2026-07-19T12:53:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T12:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/557452\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T12:53:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T12:53:11","slug":"scientists-studying-earths-flowering-plants-issue-a-stark-warning-to-humanity-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/557452\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Studying Earth’s Flowering Plants Issue a Stark Warning to Humanity : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the beloved vanilla orchid<\/a>, whose pods flavor many of our favorite desserts, to the nose-twisting corpse flower<\/a>, whose gigantic flower draws crowds with every fetid bloom, even the world’s most treasured flowering plants are in grave danger.<\/p>\n

And scientists are only just coming to terms with just how much we stand to lose.<\/p>\n

In a recent paper published in Science<\/a>, an international team of biologists warns that we risk losing more than a fifth of the evolutionary history of flowering plants, as a result of ever-increasing human pressures .<\/p>\n

Assessing species loss in terms of their evolutionary history and level of endangerment is a relatively new approach in conservation science. <\/p>\n

\"ScientistsThe vanilla orchid is one of many EDGE species threatened by climate change<\/a>. (Sarah Lage\/iStock\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

A method established in 2007<\/a> by the Zoological Society in London combines a species’ evolutionary distinctiveness (ED) with its risk of extinction (global endangerment, GE). <\/p>\n

This results in an ‘EDGE’ score, which helps biologists identify species to prioritize in conservation.<\/p>\n

EDGE scores particularly highlight the value of species that uniquely represent a long, isolated branch on the evolutionary tree, such as Ginkgo biloba<\/a>, the sole living descendant of a lineage dating back at least 300 million years.<\/p>\n

The recent report is the first time scientists have used EDGE scores to assess the extinction stakes for angiosperms, ie flowering plants.<\/p>\n

\"ScientistsThe top 25 EDGE species of angiosperms. (Forest et al., Science, 2026)<\/p>\n

“These EDGE scores provide the vital information required to highlight the irreplaceable and threatened species that are often overlooked and whose conservation will help maintain current and future benefits to people and the future of all life on Earth,” says<\/a> the study’s lead author, F\u00e9lix Forest, a plant evolutionary biologist at Kew Gardens.<\/p>\n

Rikki Gumbs, a biologist from the Zoological Society in London and co-lead on the paper, says the EDGE approach has allowed conservationists to identify overlooked animals most in need of urgent conservation action for almost two decades, while plants have remained underrepresented.<\/p>\n

“Flowers and forests\u202faren’t\u202fjust a pretty backdrop for pictures of\u202fbees and tigers,” he says<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Each plant is\u202fan\u202fessential, living\u202fbuilding block to\u202flife on Earth,\u202fproviding us with\u202fair to breathe\u202fand food to eat.\u202fBy applying the\u202fEDGE\u202fapproach\u202fto flowering plants, we\u202fare better able to\u202fprotect\u202four planet’s rich, bustling ecosystems that have taken billions of years to develop.”<\/p>\n

\"Subscribe<\/a><\/p>\n

With this approach, the researchers discovered that 21.2 percent of angiosperm evolutionary history is at risk of extinction.<\/p>\n

Of the 335,497 known flowering plant species included in the analysis, 9,945 qualified as EDGE species \u2013 meaning that about 3 percent of all known plant species are both evolutionarily unique, and globally endangered with extinction.<\/p>\n

There are several familiar faces on the list: Vanilla planifolia<\/a>, the plant responsible for the most classic ice-cream flavor; Nymphaea thermarum,<\/a> the world’s smallest water-lily; and Amorphophallus titanum<\/a>, the giant stinky flower we all love to hate, along with many of its relatives.<\/p>\n

\"ScientistsThe jellyfish tree grows only in the Seychelles. (Christopher Kaiser-Bunbury\/Wikimedia Commons<\/a>\/CC-BY-4.0)<\/p>\n

But of course, many other plants on the list are ones you might’ve never heard of: the jellyfish tree, Medusagyne\u00a0oppositifolia<\/a>, for instance; or Hondurodendron urceolatum<\/a>, a tree which is the only living member of its genus.<\/p>\n

“The benefits that EDGE species provide to society are as unique and irreplaceable as the species themselves,” explains<\/a> Kew botanist Matilda Brown.<\/p>\n

“Losing a deep branch of the tree of life means the potential loss of the next breakthrough cancer<\/a> drug or antibiotic, with no second chance.”<\/p>\n

\"YouTube frameborder=”0\u2033 allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen><\/p>\n

While the risk of losing these inimitable species is concerning news, it’s also an opportunity for plant conservation programs across the world to allocate resources where they could make the greatest difference to biodiversity.<\/p>\n

Related: Scientists Rule Out a Worst-Case Climate Scenario, But We’re Not Off The Hook<\/a><\/p>\n

“With more than two in five plants estimated to be at risk of extinction, and 75 percent of those that remain to be discovered predicted to be threatened, now is the time to catalyze a new generation of conservation monitoring and action for the many distinct, overlooked, and threatened plant species on Earth,” the authors conclude<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The research was published in Science<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article was fact-checked by Rachel Garner<\/a> and edited by\u00a0Rebecca Dyer<\/a>. While we pride ourselves on our process, we are only human. If you spot a mistake, please let us know<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From the beloved vanilla orchid, whose pods flavor many of our favorite desserts, to the nose-twisting corpse flower,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,2209,82],"class_list":["post-557452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-msft-content","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}