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Asked by wookiee to Amelia, Clem, Izzy, Sarah on 18 Mar 2014.
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Isabel Webb answered on 18 Mar 2014:
Any living thing on the planet could go extinct – so yes, plants could too.
There are many reasons that things go extinct. It may be because their environment suddenly changes, and they can no longer survive – for example, something like an ice age or a supervolcano. There have been 5 ‘mass extinctions’ in history, where events like this wiped out most species on the planet.
Something might go extinct because another organism killed them all – like the dodo, which humans hunted to extinction.
Another reason might be that the few left of a species might no be able to find eachother to reproduce – if two plants are too far away from each other, their pollen wouldn’t be carried far enough.We have no idea how many plant species have existed and gone extinct, and we have no idea how many of those extinctions we have caused (we have cut down a lot of rainforest now – who knows what was in there!). Hopefully a better understanding of biology will help us to save species before they go extinct in the future. Scientists in Kew in London are already trying to collect seeds from the world’s plants, so that we can try and revive species if they go extinct. It’s a lot easier than saving extinct animals though!
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anon answered on 18 Mar 2014:
Sadly, yes they can, plants cannot run away or find shelter from their environment like animals can, they are quite literally rooted to the spot.
In places like the rain-forest where deforestation is taking place all the time, I wouldn’t be surprised if they are becoming extinct before we’ve even found them in the first place!
Quite scary if you think about it
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Amelia Frizell-Armitage answered on 18 Mar 2014:
Yes plants can go extinct like animals. This can be a natural process. As new species evolve that are better adapted to their enviornment, they outcompete less well adapted species which can no longer survive. Species can also go extinct from environmental events such as volcanoes and earthquakes if all the members of that species live in the same area.
As Izzy says there have been 5 mass extinction events, which are points in history where most of the species on the planet have been wiped out. These have been cause by things like asteroids hitting earth, and the ice age. Sadly, many scientists now think we are at the begininning of a 6th mass extinction event caused by human activity.
Humans are destroying habitats such as forests to build cities, roads and farms. For plants that can only grow in one part of the world this can mean that they go extinct. We are also putting carbon into the atmosphere causing the climate to change, which will cause many species to become extinct if they can’t survive in the new climate. Some scientists believe that unless we change our behaviour and start conserving more species, around 70% of all plant species could be extinct by 2050!
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