Recent breakthroughs in metabolomics promise to reveal the cryptic chemical traits that mediate plant community composition, character evolution and lineage diversification

• Published in: The New phytologist Vol. 214; no. 3; pp. 952 - 958
• Main Author: Sedio, Brian E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England New Phytologist Trust 01.05.2017; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Analytical chemistry; Biodiversity; Bioinformatics; Biological evolution; botanical composition; Chemical defense; chemical defenses; chemical elements; chemical evolution; Coexistence; Community composition; community ecology; Diversification; Evolution; Herbivores; Innovation; Interactions; macroevolution; Mass spectrometry; Mass spectroscopy; Metabolomics; Molecular chains; NMR; Nuclear magnetic resonance; nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy; Organic chemistry; pathogens; Phylogeny; Plant communities; Plant diversity; Plant ecology; Plant species; Plants - chemistry; Plants - metabolism; species coexistence; Species diversity; Species Specificity; Tansley insight; macroevolution; nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy; mass spectrometry; community ecology; chemical evolution; species coexistence
• ISSN: 0028-646X; 1469-8137; 1469-8137
• DOI: 10.1111/nph.14438

Much of our understanding of the mechanisms by which biotic interactions shape plant communities has been constrained by the methods available to study the diverse secondary chemistry that defines plant relationships with other organisms. Recent innovations in analytical chemistry and bioinformatics promise to reveal the cryptic chemical traits that mediate plant ecology and evolution by facilitating simultaneous structural comparisons of hundreds of unknown molecules to each other and to libraries of known compounds. Here, I explore the potential for mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance metabolomics to enable unprecedented tests of seminal, but largely untested hypotheses that propose a fundamental role for plant chemical defenses against herbivores and pathogens in the evolutionary origins and ecological coexistence of plant species diversity.