Summary: It has been discovered that approximately 1/5 of all the plant species in the world are at risk for extinction. The main cause of the threat is because of humans. Use of plants for agriculture is the top reason as to why the plant population is decreasing so much. Other reasons include development of houses and buildings, logging, and the use of land for livestock. All of these reasons are somehow involved with humans. We are the foundation for everything that is occurring and scientists believe that if the government takes the correct approaches, we might be able to prevent some of the plants for becoming extinct. Plants are the producers, and basically control everything in an ecosystem. It is their duty to produce oxygen, provide water and food for animals and humans, and to give off vitamins such as phosphorus to animals. If the plants became extinct, so would animals and then so would humans. The area that is at the highest risk for extinction is by far the rain forests. Scientists have been taking samples and performing tests to see how bad this threat is, and how much at risk the plants are for extinction. Their results indicated that about 1/5 of the 380,000 plant species are at risk for extinction.
Personal Reflection: I personally think that this is a very serious as well as shocking problem. I, along with many others I'm sure, had no idea that plants were endangered, let alone at such a hight risk for extinction. I think that this is a very serious problem because plants are the basis for all life on earth. They provide us with oxygen and food, and they also provide animals food and water. They also give us vitamins and minerals, such as phosphorus. If a large number of plants become extinct, a lot more species of animals will become endangered, which will put us at risk because we rely on plants and animals for food, energy, and minerals. I really hope that there is some way we can prevent such a large percentage of our plants from becoming extinct. This threat really shows how unhealthy our environment and earth is.
Questions:
1. Did you have any idea that 1/5 of our plant species are seriously endangered? How did you react to when you read this?
2. How do you think life would be different without as many plants?
3. What steps do you think we can take to prevent the extinction?
4. How would the lack of plants affect our everyday lives?
Emily great topic. I actualy knew that animals are not the only endangered organisims. I did not know the exact amount of our plants that are endangered. I wasn't suprised to reading that they are endangered. Also I am a little annoyed that not everyone really cares about destroying these plants because if they did they would have done something. I think without all these plants it could distereb the circly of life. Without all these plants there would be a disterbance in the carbon cyle, the phosphorus cyle and defienitly the food web. With all this disterbance in the environment we would be makeing more competition of the plants for energy. I think we need to restore all of the endangered plants. Then we would have to do something to stop the distruction of the endangered and non endangered plants. It would affect our everyday live because it would affect the carbon cylce. Affecting the carbon cylce by limiting the amount of plants would cause negative effects to our carbon cylce. Which could leave to more carbon in the air if we keep doing what we are doing and that would lead to more global warming problems. Do you know exactly where the most of the endagered plants inhabit in?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kristi. Everyone makes a big deal about saving the endangered animals, but how often do you hear about saving endangered plants? I have never heard of it until reading this post. I personally feel that this is a bigger problem than the animals. Honestly, I don't understand why people are so hung up on saving these exotic animals that serve absolutely no purpose. As Kristi said, this issue effects us more because it would mess with the carbon cycle. In addition, some of these plants are just astonishing to look at. I found a picture of rafflesia, an endangered flower, which can be seen here: http://webecoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/rafflesia.jpg
ReplyDeleteI agree with both Luke and Kristi. I had no idea that plants were endangered, because everyone makes a big deal about the animals. No one every says anything about the plants risk. I found a link about these plants:
ReplyDeletehttp://plants.usda.gov/threat.html
This is by the United States Department of Agriculture. You can search for endangered or threatened plants by a certain category. It seems pretty helpful if you want to know more.
When I read this article, I have to admit I was pretty shocked. Without plants, there will not be enough animals to go around since they eat them, and the oxygen level will also go down. This effects our daily life because we need to breathe to survive. To prevent extinction, we need to work harder at helping the plants, not just the animals, and reduce the use of fertilizers. Scientists could also try to come up with a new fertilizers that isn't harmful to the environment.