Question: Why do plants go extinct or become at risk?

Emma Markham answered on 20 Jun 2019:

That is a great question! So plants are evolved to be well adapted to live in a specific place (so they are adapted for the temperature and rainfall which would be at that place, the soil type, specific animals which will pollinate your flowers or distribute your seeds etc).

Plants cannot move to another location if the environment changes, so they can become extinct or at risk, as some plants are only native to a very small region. All plants are competing for the same limited resources of nutrients in the soil, access to water and sufficient sunlight. If warming conditions due to climate change mean other faster growing species can now grow in a location, then the plants that were native will find it hard to compete for enough light and nutrients and could die off. If a plant likes very wet conditions, like a bog, if the bog is drained or becomes too dry during a drought then the plants can die out. Another challenge is pests, particularly tropical ones that our plants have not evolved defenses against, so they can be wiped out by a disease. For example dutch elm disease where almost all elm trees in the UK were killed.