China’s flora – a victim of economic growth?

China is the third most important country in the world in terms of plant diversity, with a vascular flora containing something in the region of 33,000 taxons, of which almost half are endemic species. From an evolutionary standpoint, this flora is extremely interesting given that it has conserved a very large number of relict lineages (some from the Paleogene and even from the Cretaceous) which have survived to the present day, partly thanks to a combination of a complex topography (especially in the south-west of the country) and to relatively low extinction rates during the global cooling in the Cenozoic. This valuable plant diversity is, sadly, under serious threat owing to human activity, with increasingly severe effects owing to the Asian giant’s unstoppable economic growth. From a scientific standpoint, efforts are being made to increase our knowledge of this flora, so as to lay the foundations for its conservation, and in the hope that these measures have not come too late.

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Organized by: Residents for Researchers