According to a new research, California’s native plants are endangered due to climate changes. By the end of the century, some plants are to lose about 80 percent of their variety. The speed of climate change may determine those plants to move approximately a mile a year into more hospitable habitats.

A scientific study concluded that in order to avoid extinction, plants should have the ability to migrate to cooler areas. If not, carbon dioxide emissions should drastically decrease, reaching the 1990 level.

As far as resettlement concerns, some plants could move to higher elevations, but the ones that already live in Alpine areas could not have this possibility, therefore they could get pushed right off the mountains. Others may encounter difficulties due to their large seeds (for instance oaks and bay trees). Furthermore, small plants’ seeds will disperse more easily, with weedy and invasive species belonging to this last category.

Researchers identified 5,500 native Californian plants which are at risk of becoming “plant refugees”. Computer models have been used to predict the outcome of perilous climate fluctuations. "We found the extent of climate change impact can be very broad," stated Hayhoe during an interview. The specialist and his crew identified specific locations where the native plants would be able to survive.  Now they can plan ahead to protect them, avoiding their disappearance. Planning for native species will be conservationists’ most important target.

Plants can definitely move hundreds of miles in thousands of years but scientists wonder whether they could move fast enough in only one century, in order to survive. The native habitation isn’t favorable not only as a result of gas emissions and because the temperature is continuously increasing, but also because the landscape changes, turning into a more fragmented one, due to agriculture and development.