Phytochemical diversity drives plant-insect community diversity
Lora A. Richards,Lee A. Dyer,Matthew L. Forister,Angela M. Smilanich,Craig D. Dodson,Michael D. Leonard,Christopher S. Jeffrey +6 more
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TLDR
It is found that phytochemical diversity has a direct and positive effect on the diversity of herbivores but also reduces overall herbivore damage, consistent with traditional hypotheses that predict positive associations between plant chemical diversity, insect herbivor diversity, and trophic specialization.Abstract:
What are the ecological causes and consequences of variation in phytochemical diversity within and between plant taxa? Despite decades of natural products discovery by organic chemists and research by chemical ecologists, our understanding of phytochemically mediated ecological processes in natural communities has been restricted to studies of either broad classes of compounds or a small number of well-characterized molecules. Until now, no studies have assessed the ecological causes or consequences of rigorously quantified phytochemical diversity across taxa in natural systems. Consequently, hypotheses that attempt to explain variation in phytochemical diversity among plants remain largely untested. We use spectral data from crude plant extracts to characterize phytochemical diversity in a suite of co-occurring plants in the tropical genus Piper (Piperaceae). In combination with 20 years of data focused on Piper-associated insects, we find that phytochemical diversity has a direct and positive effect on the diversity of herbivores but also reduces overall herbivore damage. Elevated chemical diversity is associated with more specialized assemblages of herbivores, and the cascading positive effect of phytochemistry on herbivore enemies is stronger as herbivore diet breadth narrows. These results are consistent with traditional hypotheses that predict positive associations between plant chemical diversity, insect herbivore diversity, and trophic specialization. It is clear from these results that high phytochemical diversity not only enhances the diversity of plant-associated insects but also contributes to the ecological predominance of specialized insect herbivores.read more
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Supporting Online Material for Plant Genotypic Diversity Predicts Community Structure and Governs an Ecosystem Process
Gregory M. Crutsinger,Michael D. Collins,James A. Fordyce,Zachariah Gompert,Chris C. Nice,Nathan J. Sanders +5 more
TL;DR: This paper showed that increasing population genotypic diversity in a dominant old-field plant species, Solidago altissima, determined arthropod diversity and community structure and increased ANPP.
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Why do plants produce so many terpenoid compounds
Eran Pichersky,Robert A. Raguso +1 more
TL;DR: Evidence is discussed relating to the hypotheses that given ecological functions may be enhanced by the presence of mixtures of terpenes and that the acquisition of new functions by terpenoids may favor their retention once the original functions are lost.
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Current Challenges in Plant Eco-Metabolomics
Kristian Peters,Anja Worrich,Anja Worrich,Alexander Weinhold,Oliver Alka,Gerd Ulrich Balcke,Claudia Birkemeyer,Helge Bruelheide,Onno W Calf,Sophie Dietz,Kai Dührkop,Emmanuel Gaquerel,Uwe Heinig,Marlen Kücklich,Mirka Macel,Caroline Müller,Yvonne Poeschl,Georg Pohnert,Christian Ristok,Víctor M. Rodríguez,Christoph Ruttkies,Meredith C. Schuman,Rabea Schweiger,Nir Shahaf,Christoph Steinbeck,Maria Tortosa,Hendrik Treutler,Nico Ueberschaar,Pablo Velasco,Brigitte M. Weiß,Anja Widdig,Anja Widdig,Steffen Neumann,Nicole M. van Dam +33 more
TL;DR: Eco-Metabolomics as mentioned in this paper is an untargeted biochemical approach to measure many thousands of metabolites in different species, including plants and animals, with the aim of characterising biochemical interactions of organisms across different spatial and temporal scales.
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Does plant apparency matter? Thirty years of data provide limited support but reveal clear patterns of the effects of plant chemistry on herbivores.
TL;DR: A striking pattern that emerged from data was a pervasiveness of beneficial effects of secondary metabolites on herbivore performance, especially generalists, which provides evidence that herbivores are evolving effective counteradaptations to putative plant defenses.
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The many dimensions of phytochemical diversity: linking theory to practice.
TL;DR: It is argued 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, and it must account for these frames of reference to meaningfully understand diversity.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Butterflies and plants: a study in coevolution
Paul R. Ehrlich,Peter H. Raven +1 more
TL;DR: The relationship between butterflies and their food plants is investigated, the examination of patterns of interaction between two major groups of organisms with a close and evident ecological relationship, such as plants and herbivores.
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On the evolution of host specificity in phytophagous arthropods
TL;DR: It is argued that generalist natural enemies of herbivorous insects provide a major selection pressure for restricted host plant range and the significance of plant chemistry is discussed in terms of regulating behavior.
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Phytochemistry of the genus Piper
Virinder S. Parmar,Subhash C. Jain,Kirpal S. Bisht,Rajni Jain,Poonam Taneja,Amitabh Jha,O. D. Tyagi,Ashok K. Prasad,Jesper Wengel,Carl Erik Olsen,Per M. Boll,Per M. Boll +11 more
TL;DR: The secondary metabolites isolated from Piper species for the period 1907 to June 1996 have been reviewed in this paper, where nearly six hundred chemical constituents belonging to different classes of bioactive compounds are listed together with their source(s) and references.
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Neotropical Floristic Diversity: Phytogeographical Connections Between Central and South America, Pleistocene Climatic Fluctuations, or an Accident of the Andean Orogeny?
TL;DR: The geological background is reviewed, the composition of the extant Neotropical flora is summarized, the striking ecological consistency of many taxa and life forms is pointed out, and how some of the present phytogeographical patterns have developed from the interplay of these factors are suggested.
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Plant genotypic diversity predicts community structure and governs an ecosystem process.
Gregory M. Crutsinger,Michael D. Collins,James A. Fordyce,Zachariah Gompert,Chris C. Nice,Nathan J. Sanders +5 more
TL;DR: It is shown experimentally that increasing population genotypic diversity in a dominant old-field plant species, Solidago altissima, determined arthropod diversity and community structure and increased ANPP.