Some of the most magnificent trees native to the United States, including the mighty redwood of California and the renowned black ash of the Northeast, are at risk of going extinct. So are some tree species that are generally unknown.
A study published by Plants People Planet estimates that between 11 percent and 16 percent of all U.S. trees are now threatened with extinction. The most common threat comes from “invasive and problematic pests and diseases.” With 881 species from 269 genera (the scientific term for a group of related living things with one or more species) the first country-wide analysis of tree extinction risk estimates we’re in danger of losing more tree species than ever before.
The study’s authors updated the checklist of all tree species native to the contiguous U.S. and crafted over 700 new or updated assessments. “Most species native to the continental United States had either never been assessed or were outdated on the two most widely used threat assessment platforms in the United States,” the study reports.
The updated information offers a more robust view of trees across the U.S., even if only eight of the tree species listed as threatened made a federally recognized list as endangered or threatened. Then there’s another 17 species on the study’s at-risk list that live only in the wild, leaving them prone to full extinction if they do get wiped out.
“It’s easy to feel that gloom and doom because … the scope of the crisis is really, really great right now,” Murphy Westwood, vice president for science and conservation at the Morton Arboretum in Illinois and a lead author of the study, tells the Washington Post. “We’re losing species before they even get described.”
The Botanic Gardens Conservation International coalition is working to expose “plant blindness,” and to both study and celebrate the world’s 58,000-plus tree species. Westwood was part of the U.S. contingent that investigated the threats to U.S. trees.
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