Third of tropical African plant species at risk of extinction

Ethiopia stands out as having one of the highest proportions of threatened species across tropical Africa standing at 50.2 percent. Four of six ecoregions represented in the Ethiopian highlands are in the top 10 most threatened, and all six are within the top 20.

Thomas Couvreur of the French National Institute for Sustainable Development and one of the research authors, said extinction of species will be a huge strain on local communities, as reported by newscientist.com.

"There are a lot of reasons why biodiversity, not just in tropical Africa, but all around the world, is important to protect. Regions with higher biodiversity harbor fewer diseases," Couvreur told newscientist.com.

According to Science Advances, while the conservation status of most species in large vertebrate groups including 86 percent of mammals and 61 percent of birds has been assessed, only less than 8 percent of vascular plants has been assessed despite their crucial importance for terrestrial ecosystems.

This means that 5,792 of the estimated 6,500 species of mammals have been assessed, 11,133 of 18,000 birds and only 28,114 vascular plant species of the estimated 352,000 species worldwide has been assessed.

The new study attributes the gap to the high level of species diversity in plants, making it a time-consuming proposition to evaluate the threats faced by plants, especially in the many tropical areas where the flora is poorly documented.

Science Advances said while International Union for Conservation of Nature is on track to achieve its target of 38,500 plant species assessments on the Red List by 2020, this would only reach 10 percent of Global Strategy for Plant Conservation target 2.

The target 2, seeks to have an assessment of the conservation status of all known plant species, as far as possible, to guide conservation action.

To realize the target, Science Advances is calling for complementary methods to speed up the process of assessing the conservation status of the world's flora.