Plant Secondary Metabolite Diversity and Species Interactions

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
André Kessler ◽  
Aino Kalske
Keyword(s):  
Species Interactions ◽  
Complex Traits ◽  
Information Transfer ◽  
Plant Secondary Metabolites ◽  
Plant Secondary Metabolite ◽  
Chemical Information ◽  
Complex Data ◽  
Dependent Manner ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Mutualistic Interaction

Ever since the first plant secondary metabolites (PSMs) were isolated and identified, questions about their ecological functions and diversity have been raised. Recent advances in analytical chemistry and complex data computation, as well as progress in chemical ecology from mechanistic to functional and evolutionary questions, open a new box of hypotheses. Addressing these hypotheses includes the measurement of complex traits, such as chemodiversity, in a context-dependent manner and allows for a deeper understanding of the multifunctionality and functional redundancy of PSMs. Here we review a hypothesis framework that addresses PSM diversity on multiple ecological levels (α, β, and γ chemodiversity), its variation in space and time, and the potential agents of natural selection. We use the concept of chemical information transfer as mediator of antagonistic and mutualistic interaction to interpret functional and microevolutionary studies and create a hypothesis framework for understanding chemodiversity as a factor driving ecological processes.

scholarly journals Long-term effects of elevated CO2, nighttime warming and drought on plant secondary metabolites in a temperate heath ecosystem

2020 ◽  
Vol 125 (7) ◽  
pp. 1065-1075
Author(s):  
Tao Li ◽  
Päivi Tiiva ◽  
Åsmund Rinnan ◽  
Riitta Julkunen-Tiitto ◽  
Anders Michelsen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Secondary Metabolites ◽  
Elevated Co2 ◽  
Chemical Constituents ◽  
Plant Secondary Metabolites ◽  
Plant Secondary Metabolite ◽  
Summer Drought ◽  
Voc Emissions ◽  
Nighttime Warming ◽  
Change Components

Abstract Background and Aims Plant secondary metabolites play critical roles in plant stress tolerance and adaptation, and are known to be influenced by the environment and climate changes, yet the impacts and interactions of multiple climate change components are poorly understood, particularly under natural conditions. Methods Accumulation of phenolics and emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were assessed on heather, Calluna vulgaris, an abundant evergreen dwarf shrub in European heathlands, after 6 years of exposure to elevated CO2, summer drought and nighttime warming. Key Results Drought alone had the strongest effects on phenolic concentrations and compositions, with moderate effects of elevated CO2 and temperature. Elevated CO2 exerted the greatest impact on VOC emissions, mainly by increasing monoterpene emissions. The response magnitudes varied among plant tissue types and chemical constituents, and across time. With respect to interactive effects of the studied climate change components, the interaction between drought and elevated CO2 was most apparent. Drought mainly reduced phenolic accumulation and VOC emissions, while elevated CO2 mitigated such effects. Conclusions In natural ecosystems, co-occurring climate factors can exert complex impacts on plant secondary metabolite profiles, which may in turn alter ecosystem processes.

scholarly journals Contrasting effects of large density changes on relative testes size in fluctuating populations of sympatric vole species

2014 ◽  
Vol 281 (1792) ◽  
pp. 20141291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ines Klemme ◽  
Carl D. Soulsbury ◽  
Heikki Henttonen
Keyword(s):  
Sperm Competition ◽  
Species Interactions ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Density Fluctuations ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Evolutionary Response ◽  
Density Relationship ◽  
Testes Size ◽  
Male Reproductive Effort ◽  
Fluctuating Populations

Across species, there is usually a positive relationship between sperm competition level and male reproductive effort on ejaculates, typically measured using relative testes size (RTS). Within populations, demographic and ecological processes may drastically alter the level of sperm competition and thus, potentially affect the evolution of testes size. Here, we use longitudinal records (across 38 years) from wild sympatric Fennoscandian populations of five species of voles to investigate whether RTS responds to natural fluctuations in population density, i.e. variation in sperm competition risk. We show that for some species RTS increases with density. However, our results also show that this relationship can be reversed in populations with large-scale between-year differences in density. Multiple mechanisms are suggested to explain the negative RTS–density relationship, including testes size response to density-dependent species interactions, an evolutionary response to sperm competition levels that is lagged when density fluctuations are over a certain threshold, or differing investment in pre- and post-copulatory competition at different densities. The results emphasize that our understanding of sperm competition in fluctuating environments is still very limited.

scholarly journals Global cooling & the rise of modern grasslands: Revealing cause & effect of environmental change on insect diversification dynamics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie E. Davis ◽  
Adam T. Bakewell ◽  
Jon Hill ◽  
Hojun Song ◽  
Peter Mayhew
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Information Transfer ◽  
Environmental Data ◽  
Global Temperature ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Global Cooling ◽  
Speciation Rates ◽  
Biotic Change ◽  
Life On Earth

AbstractUtilising geo-historical environmental data to disentangle cause and effect in complex natural systems is a major goal in our quest to better understand how climate change has shaped life on Earth. Global temperature is known to drive biotic change over macro-evolutionary time-scales but the mechanisms by which it acts are often unclear. Here, we model speciation rates for Orthoptera within a phylogenetic framework and use this to demonstrate that global cooling is strongly correlated with increased speciation rates. Transfer Entropy analyses reveal the presence of one or more additional processes that are required to explain the information transfer from global temperature to Orthoptera speciation. We identify the rise of C4 grasslands as one such mechanism operating from the Miocene onwards. We therefore demonstrate the value of the geological record in increasing our understanding of climate change on macro-evolutionary and macro-ecological processes.

scholarly journals Consciousness and the Dimensionality of DOC Patients via the Generalized Ising Model

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 1342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pubuditha M. Abeyasinghe ◽  
Marco Aiello ◽  
Emily S. Nichols ◽  
Carlo Cavaliere ◽  
Salvatore Fiorenza ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ising Model ◽  
Computational Modeling ◽  
Information Transfer ◽  
Brain Injuries ◽  
Structural Connectivity ◽  
Complex Data ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Brain Functions ◽  
States Of Consciousness ◽  
Generalized Ising Model

The data from patients with severe brain injuries show complex brain functions. Due to the difficulties associated with these complex data, computational modeling is an especially useful tool to examine the structure–function relationship in these populations. By using computational modeling for patients with a disorder of consciousness (DoC), not only we can understand the changes of information transfer, but we also can test changes to different states of consciousness by hypothetically changing the anatomical structure. The generalized Ising model (GIM), which specializes in using structural connectivity to simulate functional connectivity, has been proven to effectively capture the relationship between anatomical structures and the spontaneous fluctuations of healthy controls (HCs). In the present study we implemented the GIM in 25 HCs as well as in 13 DoC patients diagnosed at three different states of consciousness. Simulated data were analyzed and the criticality and dimensionality were calculated for both groups; together, those values capture the level of information transfer in the brain. Ratifying previous studies, criticality was observed in simulations of HCs. We were also able to observe criticality for DoC patients, concluding that the GIM is generalizable for DoC patients. Furthermore, dimensionality increased for the DoC group as compared to healthy controls, and could distinguish different diagnostic groups of DoC patients.

scholarly journals PhenomeXcan: Mapping the genome to the phenome through the transcriptome

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (37) ◽  
pp. eaba2083 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milton Pividori ◽  
Padma S. Rajagopal ◽  
Alvaro Barbeira ◽  
Yanyu Liang ◽  
Owen Melia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Complex Traits ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Genome Wide Association Study ◽  
Association Studies ◽  
Gene List ◽  
Tissue Expression ◽  
Mendelian Inheritance ◽  
Complex Data ◽  
Causal Genes ◽  
User Friendly

Large-scale genomic and transcriptomic initiatives offer unprecedented insight into complex traits, but clinical translation remains limited by variant-level associations without biological context and lack of analytic resources. Our resource, PhenomeXcan, synthesizes 8.87 million variants from genome-wide association study summary statistics on 4091 traits with transcriptomic data from 49 tissues in Genotype-Tissue Expression v8 into a gene-based, queryable platform including 22,515 genes. We developed a novel Bayesian colocalization method, fast enrichment estimation aided colocalization analysis (fastENLOC), to prioritize likely causal gene-trait associations. We successfully replicate associations from the phenome-wide association studies (PheWAS) catalog Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man, and an evidence-based curated gene list. Using PhenomeXcan results, we provide examples of novel and underreported genome-to-phenome associations, complex gene-trait clusters, shared causal genes between common and rare diseases via further integration of PhenomeXcan with ClinVar, and potential therapeutic targets. PhenomeXcan (phenomexcan.org) provides broad, user-friendly access to complex data for translational researchers.

Sodium balance in ruffed grouse as influenced by sodium levels and plant secondary metabolites in quaking aspen

1995 ◽  
Vol 73 (6) ◽  
pp. 1106-1114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter J. Jakubas ◽  
Christopher G. Guglielmo ◽  
Conrad Vispo ◽  
William H. Karasov
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Metabolites ◽  
Populus Tremuloides ◽  
Plant Secondary Metabolites ◽  
Plant Secondary Metabolite ◽  
Sodium Balance ◽  
Quaking Aspen ◽  
Ruffed Grouse ◽  
Acid Load ◽  
Free Ranging ◽  
Coniferyl Benzoate

Forages in boreal ecosystems are often deficient in sodium for mammalian herbivores. Moreover, consumption of various plant secondary metabolites has been associated with negative sodium balance in mammals. Neither of these issues has been investigated in birds, which differ from mammals in their ion-exchange processes and postrenal absorption of urine. Our objectives were to determine if ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus) can maintain sodium balance on quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) flower buds, an important winter food, and to determine if the buds' primary plant secondary metabolite (coniferyl benzoate) further compromises a bird's sodium balance. Captive ruffed grouse were fed either aspen buds (0.063 mg∙g−1 sodium) or a formulated diet having different concentrations of coniferyl benzoate in no-choice feeding trials. Sodium excretion did not change in response to coniferyl benzoate intake or acid load from detoxication processes; however, birds were marginally in negative sodium balance (P = 0.035; −5.06 ± 2.05 mg∙kg−1∙d−1) when feeding on aspen buds. Sodium levels in the feces from free-ranging grouse (0.050 ± 0.0 mg∙g−1) and in their winter foods (0.065 mg∙g−1) indicated that these birds likely maintained sodium balance. We estimated that free-ranging ruffed grouse may need as little as 7 mg∙kg−1∙d−1 of sodium to maintain sodium balance, which is lower than the minimum sodium requirements for poultry and mammals.

scholarly journals Investigation of Two Distinct Flavone Synthases for Plant-Specific Flavone Biosynthesis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

2005 ◽  
Vol 71 (12) ◽  
pp. 8241-8248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Effendi Leonard ◽  
Yajun Yan ◽  
Kok Hong Lim ◽  
Mattheos A. G. Koffas
Keyword(s):  
Saccharomyces Cerevisiae ◽  
Recombinant Strain ◽  
Plant Secondary Metabolites ◽  
Dependent Manner ◽  
Recombinant Yeast Strain ◽  
Membrane Bound ◽  
Flavone Synthase ◽  
Flavone Synthase Ii ◽  
Dose Dependent

ABSTRACT Flavones are plant secondary metabolites that have wide pharmaceutical and nutraceutical applications. We previously constructed a recombinant flavanone pathway by expressing in Saccharomyces cerevisiae a four-step recombinant pathway that consists of cinnamate-4 hydroxylase, 4-coumaroyl:coenzyme A ligase, chalcone synthase, and chalcone isomerase. In the present work, the biosynthesis of flavones by two distinct flavone synthases was evaluated by introducing a soluble flavone synthase I (FSI) and a membrane-bound flavone synthase II (FSII) into the flavanone-producing recombinant yeast strain. The resulting recombinant strains were able to convert various phenylpropanoid acid precursors into the flavone molecules chrysin, apigenin, and luteolin, and the intermediate flavanones pinocembrin, naringenin, and eriodictyol accumulated in the medium. Improvement of flavone biosynthesis was achieved by overexpressing the yeast P450 reductase CPR1 in the FSII-expressing recombinant strain and by using acetate rather than glucose or raffinose as the carbon source. Overall, the FSI-expressing recombinant strain produced 50% more apigenin and six times less naringenin than the FSII-expressing recombinant strain when p-coumaric acid was used as a precursor phenylpropanoid acid. Further experiments indicated that unlike luteolin, the 5,7,4′-trihydroxyflavone apigenin inhibits flavanone biosynthesis in vivo in a nonlinear, dose-dependent manner.

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