20-year study finds 50 native plants disappearing from NYC area, less diverse landscape
By APFriday, April 2, 2010
NYC study: 50 native plants disappearing
NEW YORK — A 20-year-long study by the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is offering a bleak outlook for the future of some native plants.
The project has identified 50 native species that have disappeared from the region around New York City during the last century.
Others have become far less abundant because of pollution, the destruction of their habitat, competition from foreign species and other reasons.
Other scientists have made similar findings nationwide.
Experts say the trend has many causes, but the biggest one may turn out to be globalization.
Traders and settlers have been bringing Old World plants to the Americas since colonization, but the process has accelerated with advances in travel.
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