Rare plants on mountains in the Scottish Highlands could soon become extinct if climate change continues to accelerate, researchers have warned.

Drooping saxifrage, snow pearlwort and mountain sandwort found on the slopes of the Ben Lawers range are retreating further up the mountains due to rising temperatures, according to a Stirling University team.

Snow pearlwort has declined by 66 per cent since the mid-1990s, moving it from a vulnerable to endangered conservation threat status by the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland.

Ben Lawers is the most southern point in Europe where the plant grows and it is more commonly found in the Arctic and northern Scandinavia.

Sarah Watts, from the university’s faculty of natural sciences, has spent 12 years monitoring ten rare species growing on Ben Lawers alongside National Trust for Scotland, adding to a data set that goes back 40 years.

She said rising temperatures had led to lowland species colonising upland areas and outcompeting the mountain plants, reducing the area they can grow in.

‘Our research signals a rapid loss of biodiversity happening right now which means that, if it’s allowed to continue on this accelerated trajectory, due to climate change, we will see the extinction of species like these,’ Ms Watts added.

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