More than a fifth of the Earth’s plant species are found only on islands, making them one of the largest biodiversity hotspots, a breakthrough global study has found. This conclusion has pushed the scientists behind the study to advocate for added protections of these unique ecosystems. For the first time, researchers mapped more than 300,000 plant species known to science and found that 21%, or 63,280 species, were endemic to islands, meaning they have not been found in the wild anywhere else. For years, scientists relied on rough guesses about the number of plant species native to islands. Now, with a comprehensive database, researchers can pinpoint exactly which species call these islands home, assess their conservation status and calculate precise figures for large-scale analyses. “This information is extremely valuable for both research — enhancing our understanding of the drivers of endemism and island biodiversity — and for conservation,” lead author Julian Schrader, an ecologist at Macquarie University, told Mongabay in an email. The study also found that 55% of all plants that have already gone extinct were on islands, even though they constitute just 5% of the Earth’s land surface. Of the endemic species remaining on islands, 51% are now threatened and 70% are found only on a single island. “Very worryingly, of all single-island endemic species, only 6% occur on islands currently meeting the United Nations 30×30 conservation target,” wrote Holger Kreft, one of the study’s authors, meaning that most are in unprotected areas with a higher risk of…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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