Human activity and plant biodiversity

In a study of the extent to which 9,701 plant species in China fill their potential climatic ranges, comparison of the human-dominated southeastern part of the country with the northwestern part reveals that plant species with narrow ranges fill their ranges less in areas with high human activity than areas with low human activity, and widespread species exhibit the opposite range-filling trend, suggesting that human activities can result in replacement of narrow-ranging species with wide-ranging species.

Article #19-11851: “Human activities have opposing effects on distributions of narrow-ranged and widespread plant species in China,” by Wu-Bing Xu et al.

MEDIA CONTACTS: Keping Ma, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, CHINA; e-mail: <

[email protected]

>; Jens-Christian Svenning, Aarhus University, DENMARK; e-mail:

[email protected]

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