In the past several millenniums, we have domesticated several crop species that are crucial for human civilization, which is a symbol of significant human influence on plant evolution. A pressing question to address is if plant diversity will increase or decrease in this warming world since contradictory pieces of evidence exit of accelerating plant speciation and plant extinction in the Anthropocene. Comparison may be made of the Anthropocene with the past geological times characterised by a warming climate, e.g., the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) 55.8 million years ago (Mya)—a period of “crocodiles in the Arctic”, during which plants saw accelerated speciation through autopolyploid speciation. Three accelerators of plant speciation were reasonably identified in the Anthropocene, including cities, polar regions and botanical gardens where new plant species might be accelerating formed through autopolyploid speciation and hybridization. However, this kind of positive effect of climate warming on new plant species formation would be thoroughly offset by direct and indirect intensive human exploitation and human disturbances that cause habitat loss, deforestation, land use change, climate change, and pollution, thus leading to higher extinction risk than speciation in the Anthropocene. At last, four research directions are proposed to deepen our understanding of how plant traits affect speciation and extinction, why we need to make good use of polar regions to study the mechanisms of dispersion and invasion, how to maximize the conservation of plant genetics, species, and diverse landscapes and ecosystems and a holistic perspective on plant speciation and extinction is needed to integrate spatiotemporally.

中文翻译：

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在人类世，植物灭绝胜过植物物种形成。

在过去的几千年里，我们驯化了多种对人类文明至关重要的农作物品种，这是人类对植物进化产生重大影响的象征。一个迫切需要解决的问题是，在这个变暖的世界中，植物多样性是否会增加或减少，因为存在相互矛盾的证据表明人类世加速植物物种形成和植物灭绝。可以将人类世与过去以气候变暖为特征的地质时期进行比较，例如，5580万年前（Mya）的古新世-始新世最热期（PETM）——一段“北极鳄鱼”时期，在此期间植物通过同源多倍体物种形成加速了物种形成。人类世合理地确定了植物物种形成的三个加速器，包括城市、极地和植物园，其中可能通过同源多倍体物种形成和杂交加速形成新植物物种。然而，气候变暖对新植物物种形成的这种积极影响将被人类直接和间接的密集开发和人类干扰所彻底抵消，这些直接和间接的密集开发和人类干扰导致栖息地丧失、森林砍伐、土地​​利用变化、气候变化和污染，从而导致更高的灭绝的风险高于人类世物种形成的风险。最后提出了四个研究方向，以加深我们对植物性状如何影响物种形成和灭绝、为什么需要利用好极地来研究扩散和入侵机制、如何最大限度地保护植物遗传、物种等问题的认识。 ，需要多样化的景观和生态系统以及对植物物种形成和灭绝的整体视角来进行时空整合。