If you’re the sort of person who just can’t keep a plant alive, you’re not alone — according to a new study published June 10 in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, the entire planet seems to be suffering from a similar affliction.
After analyzing the populations of more than 330,000 seed-bearing plants around the world, the study authors found that about three plant species have gone extinct on Earth every year since 1900 — a rate that’s roughly 500 times higher than the natural extinction rate for those types of plants, which include most trees, flowers and fruit-bearing plants. Unsurprisingly, human activity plays a key role in this elevated extinction trend.
“The geographical pattern of modern extinction of plants is strikingly similar to that for animals,” the researchers wrote in their new study.
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