Study reveals, plants which are not useful to Humans will soon become extinct
According to new study, those plants which are not useful to humans are heading towards extinction. Earth's biodiversity is nearing to another grime milestone.
Recently an assessment of more than 80,000 plant species across the globe has taken place and scientists have found that, most of these plants would essentially go extinct, the reason being quite simple, because humans will not have utility for them.
This will impact plant communities of the future; it would become more homogenized than those of today.
Wake-up call
Researchers are calling it a wake-up call, it is not the future, it happening now. This one is a wakeup call, we may be able to slow down a little bit, but this one is happening, stated study lead author, john Kress from Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.
The researchers categorized the plant species, which faced the brunt of human activity, since the beginning of the Anthropocene, a geological period after which global warming has started.
Out of the 86592 plant species, which they have assessed, only about 6749 came out to be useful to humans. These include rice, corn, wheat etc.
Nearing to 20,290 plants were categorized as losers in the race for survival, the reason being they have no usefulness for humans. These include, the magnolia tree from Haiti, Cycads, redwoods, junipers and araucariales, all of these would completely disappear.
The total number of species taken into account by the scientists include 86,592, they represent about 25% of the world's vascular plants. We still do not know about these plant species, it definitely points to us alarming need to kick start the conversation.