Scientists estimate more than half of palm species may be threatened with extinction

A photograph of palm trees from one of W. Daniel Kissling's field studies. Copyright: UvA / W. D. Kissling - An international team of biologists, including W. Daniel Kissling of the University of Amsterdam, has used artificial intelligence techniques to estimate the conservation status of nearly 1900 palm species across the world. They found that more than 1000 of the species may be at risk of extinction. Their findings are published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. The international team of researchers from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the University of Zurich, and the University of Amsterdam combined existing data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List with machine learning techniques to paint a clearer picture of how palms may be threatened. Although palms are taxonomically well-studied and therefore well represented on the Red List, extinction risk assessments and information on their threats are actually lacking for 70% of the >2,500 palm species.