Achieving zero extinction for land plants.

Despite the importance of plant diversity to human wellbeing, and the threats to its survival, plant conservation receives far less support compared with vertebrate conservation. Plants can be conserved in situ , in protected areas, and ex situ , in living collections, seed banks, or cryogenic storage. At least one option is available for all species that need it, but no single method works for all. Achieving zero plant extinction requires completion of the plant inventory, status assessment for all known species, digitization of all herbarium specimens with links to other resources in an online global metaherbarium, and separate recovery plans for each threatened species. The major bottleneck is the shortage of skilled people. New technologies, machine learning, and citizen scientists can extend the reach of experts, but training and incentives are needed to increase their number. Despite the importance of plants for humans and the threats to their future, plant conservation receives far less support compared with vertebrate conservation. Plants are much cheaper and easier to conserve than are animals, but, although there are no technical reasons why any plant species should become extinct, inadequate funding and the shortage of skilled people has created barriers to their conservation. These barriers include the incomplete inventory, the low proportion of species with conservation status assessments, partial online data accessibility, varied data quality, and insufficient investment in both in and ex situ conservation. Machine learning, citizen science (CS), and new technologies could mitigate these problems, but we need to set national and global targets of zero plant extinction to attract greater support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]