High risk of extinction across the flowering plant tree of life
Summary
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 threat
Content
# High risk of extinction across the flowering plant tree of life
*Published: 2026 May 7*
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.
DOI: 10.1126/science.adz0773