The criteria of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s Red List are an essential tool for evaluating the conservation status of species around the planet, and according to these criteria all the species in the Canary Islands are endangered. However, research carried out recently by José Luis Martín Esquivel has highlighted some conflicting areas within the scientific protocol designed to identify threatened plants and animals.

Roughly a billion years from now, the ever-increasing radiation from the sun will have heated Earth into inhabitability; the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that serves as food for plant life will disappear, pulled out by the weathering of rocks; the oceans will evaporate; and all living things will disappear.

The number of alien plant species has more than tripled over the last 25 years. This is the finding of a study by European scientists who evaluated the data from 48 European countries and regions. 5789 plant species were classified as alien. 2843 originating outside of Europe, according to the researchers and their publication in the journal Preslia.

While many plant species move to a new location or go extinct as a result of climate change, grasslands clinging to a steep, rocky dale-side in Northern England seem to defy the odds and adapt to long-term changes in temperature and rainfall, according to a new study by scientists from Syracuse University and the University of Sheffield (United Kingdom) published online in the July 7 issue of the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

German and Sri Lankan researchers have developed a new method for measuring the impacts of species on local biodiversity. It makes it possible to determine whether a certain species promotes or suppresses species diversity.

An international team of scientists has published a new analysis showing that as plant species around the world go extinct, natural habitats become less productive and contain fewer total plants –– a situation that could ultimately compromise important benefits that humans get from nature.

Charles Darwin Foundation (CDF) botanists have published a list of all the introduced plants growing in Puerto Villamil, Isabela Island, the third largest town in Galapagos. 261 species were recorded, 39 of which were found growing wild.

World Wildlife Fund scientists said today that the discovery of 11 new animal and plant species in a remote area in central Vietnam underscores the importance of conservation efforts in the ancient tropical forests of the region.

A study financed by the BBVA Foundation and conducted by scientists Carlos Duarte, Nuria Agustм and Nuria Marbа from the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies (CSIC – University of the Balearic Islands) has allowed the first-time formulation of a universal rule that explains the equilibrium of plant communities, showing how plants assure the survival of their species whether their lives last a day or are prolonged over centuries.

New research shows how different species of plants evolve unique floral adaptations in order to transfer pollen on different regions of bats’ bodies, thus allowing multiple plant species to share bats as pollinators.

It's not a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket… unless you're a senita moth. Found in the parched Sonoran desert of southern Arizona and northern Mexico, the senita moth depends on a single plant species - the senita cactus - both for its food and for a place to lay eggs.

One of the basic tenets of evolution is speciation in which populations of the same species become so genetically and morphologically variable that they can be classified as two different species. Individuals of these species may be capable of mating, but they may not produce offspring, and if offspring are produced, they will be sterile or so defective that they die before they are able to reproduce.