Wild ancestors of crop plants are extremely important because of their changes in the genetics of wheat, for example, which, approximately 10,000 years ago, humans grew as a crop—today, there are thousands of different varieties of domestic, international, and even wild wheat that is used to make two types of crop; bread and pasta.  It is because of previous ancestors that this is possible—if they had, for example, done something completely different or placed a small unnatural substance in the wheat that was grown as a crop 10,000 years ago, wheat could today, theoretically, be considered unhealthy, dangerous, or even illegal, depending upon what was inserted into it.

Three plants that have yielded important drugs are the cinchona plant, which can be converted into a scientific malaria drug (Quinine); the foxglove plant, which can be converted into Digitalis (used in the treatment of heart disease); and the leaves of a periwinkle plant, a solution being toyed with by scientists to possibly help treat cancer.

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            There are many mass extinctions that have transpired in the past (e.g., during the Ordovician Period, the Devonian Period, the Permian Period, the Jurassic Period, and, finally, the Cenozoic Period.), but one that is occurring presently is Holocene era, part of the Quaternary Period, stretching back to the last two million years.   The Holocene era primarily describes the issues of global warming, and loss of biodiversity.  It is with these concerns that mass extinction of some species is clearly pertinent to this age; with sensitive populations such as the polar bear, which has struggled greatly in terms of survival, given the shrinking of ice in the Antarctic—their population has shrunk, increased, and gone away for long stretches of time as a whole.  This statistic does not apply only to polar bears, given coral reefs or rain forests, for example, have become highly endangered, thus destabilizing their individual ecosystems, which ranges all the way back to singular species of animals, plants, or even fungi.