scholarly journals A comparison of inducible, ontogenetic, and interspecific sources of variation in the foliar metabolome in tropical trees

PeerJ ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. e7536
Author(s):  
Brian E. Sedio ◽  
Armando Durant Archibold ◽  
Juan Camilo Rojas Echeverri ◽  
Chloé Debyser ◽  
Cristopher A. Boya P ◽  
...  

Plant interactions with other organisms are mediated by chemistry, yet chemistry varies among conspecific and within individual plants. The foliar metabolome—the suite of small-molecule metabolites found in the leaf—changes during leaf ontogeny and is influenced by the signaling molecule jasmonic acid. Species differences in secondary metabolites are thought to play an important ecological role by limiting the host ranges of herbivores and pathogens, and hence facilitating competitive coexistence among plant species in species-rich plant communities such as tropical forests. Yet it remains unclear how inducible and ontogenetic variation compare with interspecific variation, particularly in tropical trees. Here, we take advantage of novel methods to assemble mass spectra of all compounds in leaf extracts into molecular networks that quantify their chemical structural similarity in order to compare inducible and ontogenetic chemical variation to among-species variation in species-rich tropical tree genera. We ask (i) whether young and mature leaves differ chemically, (ii) whether jasmonic acid-inducible chemical variation differs between young and mature leaves, and (iii) whether interspecific exceeds intraspecific chemical variation for four species from four hyperdiverse tropical tree genera. We observed significant effects of the jasmonic acid treatment for three of eight combinations of species and ontogenetic stage evaluated. Three of the four species also exhibited large metabolomic differences with leaf ontogenetic stage. The profound effect of leaf ontogenetic stage on the foliar metabolome suggests a qualitative turnover in secondary chemistry with leaf ontogeny. We also quantified foliar metabolomes for 45 congeners of the four focal species. Chemical similarity was much greater within than between species for all four genera, even when within-species comparisons included leaves that differed in age and jasmonic acid treatment. Despite ontogenetic and inducible variation within species, chemical differences among congeneric species may be sufficient to partition niche space with respect to chemical defense.

2012 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Klotz Fugate ◽  
Jocleita Peruzzo Ferrareze ◽  
Melvin D. Bolton ◽  
Edward L. Deckard ◽  
Larry G. Campbell

2008 ◽  
Vol 31 (9) ◽  
pp. 1229-1236 ◽  
Author(s):  
GUNNAR JAKOB HENKES ◽  
MICHAEL R. THORPE ◽  
PETER E. H. MINCHIN ◽  
ULRICH SCHURR ◽  
URSULA S. R. RÖSE

2001 ◽  
Vol 49 (6) ◽  
pp. 687 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Stone ◽  
L. Chisholm ◽  
N. Coops

Variables related to foliar damage, leaf morphology, spectral reflectance, chlorophyll fluorescence and chlorophyll content were measured from leaves sampled from mature eucalypts exhibiting symptoms of crown dieback associated with bell miner colonisation located in Olney State Forest, near Wyong, New South Wales. Insect-damaged mature leaves and healthy young expanding leaves of some species exhibited a conspicuous red coloration caused by the presence of anthocyanin pigmentation. For the mature leaves, the level of red coloration was significantly correlated with insect herbivory and leaf necrosis. Significant correlations were also found between the level of red pigmentation and the following four spectral features: maximum reflectance at the green peak (550 nm); the wavelength position and maximum slope of the red edge (690–740 nm) and the maximum reflectance at 750 nm in the near-infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. While it has been shown that anthocyanin pigments are synthesised in some eucalypt species in response to certain abiotic stresses causing photoinhibition and activation of photoprotective mechanisms, this work proposes that biotic agents such as leaf damaging insects and fungal pathogens may induce a similar response in eucalypt foliage resulting in increased levels of anthocyanins. The potential of anthocyanin levels to be related to leaf ontogeny for some eucalypt species was also illustrated in the reflectance spectra. Thus, it is essential that leaf age be considered. This work demonstrates that the identification of a number of key features of leaf spectra can provide a basis for the development of a robust forest health indicator that may be obtained from airborne or spaceborne hyperspectral sensors.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Aaron Hogan ◽  
Christopher J. Nytch ◽  
John E. Bithorn ◽  
Jess K. Zimmerman

AbstractA growing body of research documents how the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) results in short-term changes in terrestrial environmental conditions, with the potential to drive ecosystem processes as the duration and severity of ENSO events increases with anthropogenic climate change. An ENSO positive phase results in anomalous patterns of rainfall and temperature throughout the tropics that coincide with leaf flush and increased fruit production in tropical forests worldwide. However, our understanding of possible mechanisms underlying this natural phenomenon is limited. Furthermore, flowering in tropical trees anticipates ENSO development, motivating the continued search for a global phenological cue for tropical angiosperm reproduction. We propose the solar energy flux hypothesis: that a physical energy influx in the Earth’s upper atmosphere and magnetosphere generated by a positive anomaly in the solar wind preceding ENSO development, cues tropical trees to increase allocation of resources to reproduction. We show that from 1994-2013, the solar wind energy flux into the Earth’s magnetosphere (Ein) is more strongly correlated with the number of trees in fruit or flower in a Puerto Rican wet forest than the Niño 3.4 climate index, despite Niño 3.4 being a previously identified driver of interannual increases in reproduction. We discuss the idea that changes in the global magnetosphere and thermosphere conditions via solar wind-effects on global atmospheric circulation, principally a weaker Walker circulation, cue interannual increases tropical tree reproduction. This may be a mechanism that synchronizes the reproductive output of the tropical trees to changes in environmental conditions that coincide with ENSO. Thus, space weather patterns may help explain terrestrial biological phenomena that occur at quasi-decadal scales.


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