Humanity ‘staring down barrel’ of potentially losing up to half of future medicines through plant extinction

Humanity is “staring down the barrel” of potentially losing up to half of its future medicines through plant extinction, scientists have warned.

Nearly half of all plants that flower are at risk, amounting to more than 100,000, while it is believed around 77% of all those as yet undescribed by science are at risk.

Some are going extinct between the time of their discovery and when they are catalogued – which takes around 16 years on average.

The main cause of the extinctions is habitat loss, such as deforestation or the construction of dams which flood areas upstream.

Climate change is “certainly on the horizon,” conservation analyst Dr Matilda Brown said, but added that it is much harder to measure as a threat.

Dr Brown is among the researchers at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, who have published these findings in a new report called State of the World’s Plants and Fungi.

They are calling for all newly described species to be treated as threatened unless proven otherwise.

Dr Brown explained: “We’re looking at over 100,000 species that are threatened – that’s more than the total number of species of mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, all of our vertebrates put together.

“And when we consider that nine out of 10 of our medicines come from plants, what we’re potentially staring down the barrel of is losing up to half of all of our future medicines.

“So this isn’t just a big number if you’re a plant. It’s a big number in terms of potential impacts for humanity.”

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Newly described species are vulnerable to extinction

Many newly described species are vulnerable to extinction because they are specific to just one region or they are in areas heavily affected by humans.

Numerous knowledge “dark spots” exist across the Amazon, India, China, tropical South East Asia and parts of the Middle East where conflict, difficult terrain and lack of funding have made it difficult for exploring botanists.

Over 200 scientists from 102 institutions in 30 countries across the world contributed to Kew’s report, which includes the World Checklist of Vascular Plants, the most complete record of known plant species, containing over 350,000 names.

It will need to be continually updated as around 2,500 new species are formally described each year – excluding fungi, one of the least-understood parts of the natural world.

‘We know more about surface of Mars than we know about fungi’

Mycologists – scientists who study fungi – estimate there are around 2.5 million species in total, of which just 155,000 have been catalogued.

Professor Alexandre Antonelli, director of science at Kew, said: “We know more about the surface of Mars than we know about fungi on this planet.”

At the current rate of scientific description it would take 750-1,000 years to catalogue all fungal species, researchers said, adding that they believe DNA sequencing and studying molecular data could help speed this up.

Scientists have described 10,200 new fungal species and more than 8,600 species of plants since the pandemic in 2020, as lockdowns gave them more time to work through the backlog of found but unclassified samples.

Prof Antonelli said he hopes the research will encourage policymakers to take plants and fungi into account when choosing areas to protect as part of an international goal to protect 30% of the planet by 2030 and not just focus on animals.

“Because plants and fungi provide the cornerstone of all ecosystems of human life, we absolutely think that they have to be part of that process of identifying the 30×30 – the areas which are most important for plant and fungal diversity,” he said.