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

Sedio, Brian E.

doi:10.1111/nph.14438

Cited by 77 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 38 publications

(74 reference statements)

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“…This finding (that close relatives tended to have similar numbers of compounds, but different compound identities) could reflect a scenario where relatively small changes in pathways result in turnover in the identity, rather than number, of compounds produced. Scent dissimilarity in this study was measured without taking into account similarity in the structure of nonshared compounds (as is the common practice in the field), but recent innovation in the development of methods to quantify chemical structural similarity across species (Sedio 2017;Sedio et al 2017) present exciting opportunities to tackle these questions in future work. The development of multivariate models of trait evolution for dealing with chemical (or chemicallike) data is also needed if we are to accurately decipher nuanced patterns.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The evolution of floral signals in relation to range overlap in a clade of California Jewelflowers (Streptanthuss.l.)

et al. 2018

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Because of their function as reproductive signals in plants, floral traits experience distinct selective pressures related to their role in speciation, reinforcement, and prolonged coexistence with close relatives. However, few studies have investigated whether population-level processes translate into detectable signatures at the macroevolutionary scale. Here, we ask whether patterns of floral trait evolution and range overlap across a clade of California Jewelflowers reflect processes hypothesized to shape floral signal differentiation at the population level. We found a pattern of divergence in floral scent composition across the clade such that close relatives had highly disparate floral scents given their age. Accounting for range overlap with close relatives explained additional variation in floral scent over time, with sympatric species pairs having diverged more than allopatric species pairs given their age. However, three other floral traits (flower size, scent complexity and flower color) did not fit these patterns, failing to deviate from a null Brownian motion model of evolution. Together, our results suggest that selection for divergence among close relatives in the composition of floral scents may play a key, sustained role in mediating speciation and coexistence dynamics across this group, and that signatures of these dynamics may persist at the macroevolutionary scale.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The evolution of floral signals in relation to range overlap in a clade of California Jewelflowers (Streptanthuss.l.)

et al. 2018

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“…A surge of recent research, fuelled by metabolomics and other modern approaches in analytical chemistry (Hartley et al ; Sedio ; Dyer et al ; Richards et al ), has finally begun to address the ecological and evolutionary roles of phytochemical diversity itself. This new line of research has been enabled by a key conceptual advance – the use of concepts and metrics from the species diversity literature (Iason et al ; Dyer et al ; Moore et al ; Marion et al ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The many dimensions of phytochemical diversity: linking theory to practice

2019

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Research on the ecological and evolutionary roles of phytochemicals has recently progressed from studying single compounds to examining chemical diversity itself. A key conceptual advance enabling this progression is the use of species diversity metrics for quantifying phytochemical diversity. In this perspective, we extend the theory developed for species diversity to further our understanding of what exactly phytochemical diversity is and how its many dimensions impact ecological and evolutionary processes. First, we discuss the major dimensions of phytochemical diversity – richness, evenness, functional diversity, and alpha, gamma and beta diversity. We describe their potential independent roles in biotic interactions and the practical challenges associated with their analysis. Second, we re‐analyse the published and unpublished datasets to reveal that the phytochemical diversity experienced by an organism (or observed by a researcher) depends strongly on the scale of the interaction and the total amount of phytochemicals involved. We argue that we must account for these frames of reference to meaningfully understand diversity. Moving from a general notion of phytochemical diversity as a single measure to a precise definition of its multidimensional and multiscale nature yields overlooked testable predictions that will facilitate novel insights about the evolutionary ecology of plant biotic interactions.

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“…Most plants produce complex mixtures of metabolically diverse secondary metabolites with multiple functions, and the structures and identities of most secondary metabolites remain unknown (Wang et al 2016). This combination of vast diversity, unknown structure and function, and rarity of secondary metabolites has precluded the pursuit of comparative metabolomics at the large taxonomic scales necessary for the study of whole communities (Sedio 2017). However, recent innovations in mass spectrometry (MS) informatics make it possible to compare the structures of thousands of unknown metabolites from diverse chemical classes in hundreds of plant species simultaneously.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative foliar metabolomics of a tropical and a temperate forest community

Sedio

Parker

McMahon

et al. 2018

Ecology

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Plant enemies that attack chemically similar host species are thought to mediate competitive exclusion of chemically similar plants and select for chemical divergence among closely related species. This hypothesis predicts that plant defenses should diverge rapidly, minimizing phylogenetic signal. To evaluate this prediction, we quantified metabolomic similarity for 203 tree species that represent >89% of all individuals in large forest plots in Maryland and Panama. We constructed molecular networks based on mass spectrometry of all 203 species, quantified metabolomic similarity for all pairwise combinations of species, and used phylogenetically independent contrasts to evaluate how pairwise metabolomic similarity varies phylogenetically. Leaf metabolomes exhibited clear phylogenetic signal for the temperate plot, which is inconsistent with the prediction. In contrast, leaf metabolomes lacked phylogenetic signal for the tropical plot, with particularly low metabolomic similarity among congeners. In addition, community‐wide variation in metabolomes was much greater for the tropical community, with single tropical genera supporting greater metabolomic variation than the entire temperate community. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that stronger plant‐enemy interactions lead to more rapid divergence and greater metabolomic variation in tropical than temperate plants. Additional community‐level foliar metabolomes will be required from tropical and temperate forests to evaluate this hypothesis.

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

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

Cited by 77 publications

References 38 publications

The evolution of floral signals in relation to range overlap in a clade of California Jewelflowers (Streptanthuss.l.)

The evolution of floral signals in relation to range overlap in a clade of California Jewelflowers (Streptanthuss.l.)

The many dimensions of phytochemical diversity: linking theory to practice

Comparative foliar metabolomics of a tropical and a temperate forest community

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