Anthropogenic life strategy of plants

Abstract

Plants can adapt to different conditions. They use different life strategies which allow them to adapt and survive. While humans and human civilization cause changes in the Earth’s ecology, only negative impacts of human civilization on individual parts of ecosystems tend to be presented and described. One often omitted fact is that humans also create new habitats which, for many plant species, are new challenges necessary to trigger changes in their life strategies. In the contemporary flora, there is a group of plant species that use and prefer anthropogenic habitats, and beneficial relationships started to be established between the human civilization and certain plant species. These plants have developed a new type of strategy—the anthropogenic life strategy—as a result of the co-evolution of plants and humans. During their evolution, humans—as a biological species—have exceeded their biological boundaries and transformed into human civilization, which is a factor altering environmental conditions and contributing to the evolution of new species, including plants.