Islands are key for protecting the world’s plant endemism

Abstract

Islands are renowned as evolutionary laboratories and support many species that are not found elsewhere1,2. Islands are also of great conservation concern, with many of their endemic species currently threatened or extinct3. Here we present a standardized checklist of all known vascular plants that occur on islands and document their geographical and phylogenetic distribution and conservation risk. Our analyses of 304,103 plant species reveal that 94,052 species (31%) are native to islands, which constitute 5.3% of the global landmass4. Of these, 63,280 are island endemic species, which represent 21% of global plant diversity. Three-quarters of these are restricted to large or isolated islands. Compared with the world flora, island endemics are non-randomly distributed within the tree of life, with a total of 1,005 billion years of unique phylogenetic history with 17 families and 1,702 genera being entirely endemic to islands. Of all vascular plants assigned International Union for Conservation of Nature conservation categories5, 22% are island endemics. Among these endemic species, 51% are threatened, and 55% of all documented global extinctions have occurred on islands. We find that of all single-island endemic species, only 6% occur on islands meeting the United Nations 30×30 conservation target. Urgent measures including habitat restoration, invasive species removal and ex situ programmes are needed to protect the world’s island flora. Our checklist quantifies the uniqueness of island life, provides a basis for future studies of island floras, and highlights the urgent need to take actions for conserving them.